


The deeper you cut, the deeper I hurt (it only gets worse)

by learnthemusic



Category: Social Network (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-27
Updated: 2011-05-26
Packaged: 2017-10-19 19:52:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 38,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/204610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/learnthemusic/pseuds/learnthemusic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mark can get away with anything, even if it cuts Eduardo to pieces.<br/>(or, the one where Eduardo and Mark run circles around each other, intersecting only when they both want the same things; in other words, the beginning and end of Eduardo and Mark's sexual relationship - although there's really not THAT much sex)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. sometimes things are just beyond control

Two months fly by in the summer before Eduardo’s junior year, June through July spent in Brazil predicting the weather. He makes money off it – lots and lots of money, way more than enough to impress his father – and when he gets back to the States, he’s glad to see his father actually is proud. At first he berates him for being so stupid and taking so many risks, but it’s mostly in jest. He smacks him playfully in the head and then pulls him into a hug, genuinely happy to see him.

Somehow, Eduardo has three weeks of break left. Three weeks of sleeping in, relaxing, reading things he actually wants to read instead of seventeenth century British literature that isn’t even related to economics. He heaps issues of _The Economist_ and the _Miami Herald_ and the _Wall Street Journal_ onto his desk and spends hours each day reading every article, taking notes and digesting the information at a pace suitable enough for leisure. He gives their housekeeper Rosa days off and cooks dinner sometimes, puts to use the skills his uncle taught him in Brazil and tries to prove that he has enviable culinary visions.

He doesn’t make many phone calls. He doesn’t go on dates with any girls. He doesn’t stay at parties late. He doesn’t break his 4 AM curfew. He doesn’t think about his friends or the people he hasn’t spoken to in months.

He doesn’t try to contact Mark because it hurts that, after almost a year of constant communication, Mark didn’t even try to make an effort to talk to him once the first week of June was over. There were no emails asking about Brazil or his job or his family. There were no emails telling about Mark’s internship at ADCOM or his ventures in the fast food world. There was nothing about anything and by the Fourth of July, Eduardo had stopped checking his email for anything from sender zuckonit@aol.com.

So when Mark calls him two Mondays before Eduardo’s supposed to go back to Harvard, it’s surprising. Eduardo almost drops his phone in the sink and is pretty much out of breath when he answers, “Hello?”

A host of shouts and blaring car horns filters through the speakers, almost drowning out Mark’s voice when he says, “Wardo, hey, what’s your address?”

“My what?” asks Eduardo while he dries his hands on a kitchen towel and tries to force himself not to breathe too hard. It’s just Mark. He’s probably inventing some program that will automatically compile all the addresses of your friends when you put in their student numbers or something like that. There’s nothing for Eduardo to worry about. Not really, anyway.

“Your address.”

“What do you need my address for?”

Mark’s sigh is drawn out and long suffering, the kind he uses when Dustin asks stupid questions or a classmate makes an obvious observation, the kind Eduardo really shouldn’t worry about now because he doesn’t need to be remembering things like that anymore. Eduardo can picture him rolling his eyes and shrugging, no qualms about making others feel inferior. But Eduardo really doesn’t need to be imagining Mark right now – or at any moment, really.

“Well?”

Mark replies, “I need to tell the cab driver,” so fast that Eduardo takes almost a minute to process the words all the way. His chest feels so tight he can’t even breathe properly.

“Why would you tell a cab driver in New York my address, Mark?” And there his voice goes up an octave, like when he was in eighth grade and had to read a passage in his social studies book aloud and his voice cracked up to an embarrassingly high pitch.

“Not in New York, Wardo. In Miami. Can you please hurry up? I’m about to lose this guy if you don’t –”

“Why are you in Miami? You never told me you were coming – you didn’t even _talk_ to me until right now. Who even said you could –”

“Eduardo, we can’t argue about this right now. You need to tell me –”

“I can pick you up myself,” Eduardo blurts, blinking fast and breathing hard and thinking too fast, a hand over his face. He pinches the bridge of his nose and tells himself that it’s ok. He can get through this phone call and get to the airport and not want to strangle Mark in public. He’s sure this is a good plan.

“I don’t want you to pick me up, Eduardo. I want you to tell me your address so I can get the fuck off this street and go back into an air conditioned environment before I get vaporized by the heat coming off the asphalt. Ok? Tell me.”

Sighing, “Fine,” Eduardo rattles off his address, listens to Mark regurgitate it to the cabbie, and then leans against the kitchen counter. “You should’ve told me you were coming, Mark,” he finally says, once Mark’s seemingly done settling into the backseat.

But he doesn’t get a satisfactory response. Mark just says, “You would have told me not to,” and hangs up, as if he hadn’t just spent the whole summer ignoring Eduardo.

He spends the next forty minutes alternating between pacing the living room floor, wrecking his hair with his hands and tidying up his bedroom (the last thing’s more out of habit than anything else; his room’s always pretty clean). He knows he should call his parents, warn them of Mark’s arrival, but he doesn’t even know how long Mark will be here. He doesn’t know if Mark reserved a hotel room or if he assumed Eduardo would let him stay over until he had to go back to New York. He doesn’t know about any of his decisions – and that’s not how friends are supposed to treat each other, not even in Mark’s world. He can’t just show up without warning. It’s not logical. Mark’s lucky Eduardo’s home; Eduardo could’ve been in Orlando, hanging out with some family members at Universal Studios or something. It’s a good thing Eduardo’s no big fan of theme parks.

It’s past three o’clock when Eduardo, from his perch on the kitchen counter, hears a car honk at the front gate. He quickly gets rid of the remains of his orange and goes outside. After being indoors all day, he’s blasted with a 90-degree temperature that threatens to melt all the clothes off his body. From the front door, Mark’s figure looks like a mirage, wavering in the sun. It’s not until Eduardo’s only a few feet away that he can think _oh, hey, that’s actually Mark_. Then he sees the GAP emblem on Mark’s shirt and he knows he’s not just imagining things.

Eduardo steps up to the gate, arms crossed over his chest, and blinks at Mark, who’s squinting in the sun. “Hello, Mark.”

“Wardo,” Mark says, and it sounds like almost every other time Mark has said Eduardo’s name in the last year, like he wants him to stop whatever he’s doing and pay attention to him.

“What are you doing here?”

“Well.” Mark pulls his backpack up his shoulder and that’s when Eduardo notices Mark is actually conscious about the hot weather – he’s not wearing his hoodie. “I’m here to see you.”

“What if I hadn’t been here?”

Mark shrugs – he actually thinks he has the right to _shrug_ when Eduardo is interrogating him – then must notice that Eduardo’s glaring at him because he says, “I guess I would have found a hotel until I had to go back home, then.”

“Which is when, by the way?” Eduardo’s foot starts to tap against the driveway impatiently.

“Two weeks from today.”

“You mean right before we have to go back to Harvard?”

“Yes.”

“You plan on spending the _rest_ of your summer in _Florida_?”

Mark shrugs again. “I guess.”

“In Florida, with _me_?”

“Am I not making that clear by standing in your driveway with a backpack and a suitcase?” Mark shakes his luggage at Eduardo to make a point.

Eduardo huffs, sticks out his bottom lip. This is _not_ on. “How was I supposed to know you even wanted to talk to me after you spent the last two months ignoring me?”

“Don’t be so dramatic, Wardo. I was busy. You were busy.” Eduardo rolls his eyes and mutters, _as if that’s important_ , while Mark continues, “We were both busy and it didn’t make sense to waste time sending emails that wouldn’t get responses for days.”

Although he feels righteously indignant, Eduardo stops himself from yelling when he says, “It did not take days for me to respond to emails,” and points at Mark accusingly. “If anything, it took _you_ days to respond to emails. And then a week passed and I figured you just didn’t want to talk to me anymore.” He doesn’t mention that he logged into MySpace pretty regularly, just to look at the last time Mark had logged in, to make sure that Mark really was avoiding him and not just grounded from the computer or something.

“Was I supposed to send you an email saying that I wouldn’t have time to respond to you again?” Mark seems to think it’s ok for _him_ to be upset now even though it’s obviously his fault that they’re even having this conversation in 90-degree weather in Eduardo’s _driveway_ of all places in the first place. But Mark’s looking at him with narrowed eyes and has his head turned slightly, like he’s daring Eduardo to say something – anything – and Eduardo refuses to take the bait. “That would defeat the purpose, wouldn’t it, Wardo?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Eduardo mutters immediately, and then he finally wrenches open the gate and lets Mark in. “You’re taking your own shit upstairs.”

When Mark walks past him, he casts a sidelong glance and throws Eduardo a smirk. “Whatever you say, Wardo.”

Eduardo puts his hand between Mark’s shoulders (no, no, no, he’s not thinking about what that feels like, he’s angry right now, too angry to be concerned with trivial things like the warmth of Mark’s shirt or the sweat he can feel even through the cotton, _oh he must be really hot poor_ – no, no, no, he must shut down that line of thought) and pushes him up the driveway. “Shut up and walk.”

\- - -

Eduardo’s father comes home around seven that evening, not that long after Rosa makes dinner, and quickly shuts the door to his bedroom. Mark’s at his desk, typing loudly and quickly, and Eduardo sets his hand on Mark’s shoulder.

Mark doesn’t even acknowledge Eduardo but he does respond, “What is it?”

Eduardo’s fingers dance lightly across Marks’s collarbone then squeeze. “My dad’s here.”

“And?”

“I haven’t told him you’re staying with us.”

“That’s bad of you.”

Sighing, Eduardo shakes his head and goes to sit on the edge of his bed, pulls a hand through his hair. “He doesn’t like houseguests, Mark. Especially not ones he hadn’t planned on having. Ever.”

Mark spins around in Eduardo’s chair, already very obviously at home because all he needs is to be in front of his computer, and shrugs very helpfully. Eduardo rolls his eyes.

“You could always hide me in the closet if you really wanted to.”

Eduardo snorts. “I don’t think that’s a very feasible plan. I may not like you very much right now but I’m not going to have you suffocate.”

“That’s kind of you.”

“Thanks.” Eduardo sighs again and rubs his sweaty palms up and down his thighs. “You’re going to get me in some kind of trouble, Mark. This is why you should’ve warned me.”

“Well, we can’t undo what’s already been done. You know I’m here now, so you’re just going to have to deal with it.” Mark turns back to his computer, just to close it, and then sits next to Eduardo, puts a warm, slightly shaky (why the hell is Mark even shaking, he’s not the one who’s got to face Eduardo’s dad, it makes no sense) hand on his forearm. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

All Eduardo can do without looking flustered (because there is absolutely _not_ a smattering of thoughts like _holy shit Mark’s touching me he’s trying to be nice what is going on_ in his head or anything) is scoff, “You don’t know him, Mark,” and stand up. “I appreciate the sentiment, though,” he hastens to add, when Mark seems to briefly deflate. “I’ll just, uh, deal. With him, or whatever. I’ll figure it out, don’t worry about it. He won’t kick you out or anything. I’m pretty sure.”

“Well, that sounds reassuring,” Mark says, and at least there’s a hint of a laugh in that sentence, a little bit of deprecation. He’s not wounded that Eduardo pushed him away and that’s all Eduardo needs.

“We’ll figure it out.”

\- - -

At first, it doesn’t seem like Eduardo will get his way. His father, recently arrived from work, lounging on the couch with the TV tuned to CNN so he won’t have to deal with any of his children, is doing everything in his power to ignore him, even though he’s saying _pai pai pai_ over and over, in different combinations, but he still doesn’t get his attention. _Pai, I’ve got something to tell you. Pai, will you listen to me for a second? Pai, this is important. I_ –

It’s five minutes before they lock eyes but Eduardo knows better than to assume they’ll engage in any kind of conversation. His father looks right through him, tells him to come back later and turns back to the news.

It’s always like this, without fail, and Eduardo can’t let this keep happening all the time. He just _can’t_ deal with not being heard every time he wants to contest something or suggest something or even just say something that might change his father’s mind. He’s dealt with this shit, this being nothing more than a mirror off which his father can see his reflection _shit_ , long enough.

“God – Dad! Listen to me!” Eduardo shouts, standing in front of the television now. He shouldn’t have to be yelling about this. He shouldn’t have to be yelling about getting his father’s attention _period_.

His father – and Eduardo thinks he might just start calling him _Roberto_ from now on, for all the fatherly things he does – fails to be shaken. He just crosses his arms across his wide chest, moves his neck back a bit so that his double chin is incredibly, ridiculously prominent and blinks at Eduardo. Blinks, like looking at him is such a terrible waste of time. “What?”

Huffing, Eduardo decides he won’t even beat around the bush. This conversation has been so long already, and for no good reason at all. “One of my friends from school is here and he needs a place to stay for two weeks.”

“What does this have to do with me, Eduardo?”

He glares. “He’s staying _here_.”

“No, he’s not.”

“He has nowhere else to stay!” Eduardo throws his hands up and lets both of them slide onto his neck, where his fingers steeple and twist in frustration.

His father shakes his head. “You know I don’t like houseguests, Eduardo. You didn’t even warn me –”

“He just _showed up_ , Dad!”

“Oh, yeah? What, did he knock on the front door this morning when you were still in bed sleeping?”

Eduardo makes a point of breathing slowly and deeply so he won’t fly across the room and punch his dad in the face – not that he would ever really do that, but maybe if his father weren’t his father he would. “Look,” he says, cutting the air with his hand and leaning forward in what he hopes can only be a menacing manner. He wishes he didn’t have to be so disrespectful, that his father would just _deign_ to speak to him in a civilized manner so that he wouldn’t have to pull out the Worst Son of the Century mask, but that’s all he can do is wish. “I can’t kick him out. He’s my friend and I want him here. You can’t just act like I don’t have any right to –”

“What’s going on here?”

Eduardo whips around at the sound of his mother’s voice and widens his eyes at her, gestures wildly behind him. “He’s being unreasonable!”

“Again?” She smiles and sets her briefcase on the desk in the corner of the room. Just by walking in, she manages to defuse all the tension and Eduardo stands there, kind of awestruck, completely silent. “I come home to both of you yelling and now none of you wants to tell me what this fight is about?”

“Sandra,” his father starts, but Eduardo immediately shakes the cobwebs that briefly sheathed his brain and interrupts.

“Mom, can my friend Mark stay with us for two weeks?” He watches her eyes flit back and forth between himself and his father, who he’s not even facing anymore, and says, before she can ask if he has anywhere to stay, “He’s already here – I didn’t even know he was coming, he just showed up.”

She sighs. Eduardo knows she hates taking sides, especially when it comes to him and his father. Her entire career is based on her ability to separate herself from situations and allow the parties involved to work their issues out on their own. She couldn’t call herself a good counselor if she insisted on telling people who’s right and who’s wrong. All she can do is give reasons for why each person is both right and wrong, but whenever she has to stand between her husband and her son, it’s never an easy problem to fix without hurting one of them.

“Eduardo, you know your father doesn’t like company –”

“Mom, he’s _here_! I can’t just send him to –”

“But,” she intones, raising her eyebrows at Eduardo pointedly and stopping him with a hand, “I understand that if he’s your friend and you want him to stay here, then neither I nor your father should deny you that luxury.”

“Sandra –”

“Roberto, he barely ever has friends come here anymore. It’s not that much of a burden.”

His father finally gets off the couch and now stands a few feet to Eduardo’s left, red-faced, huffing, hands on his hips. “But for two weeks?”

There’s only so much indignation Eduardo can put up with. Thankfully his mother takes this fight on herself. “That’s nothing. I want Eduardo to enjoy the rest of his summer and since he returned from Brazil, he hasn’t really done much of anything seemingly entertaining. Just allow him a two-week reprieve from your No Houseguests policy, Roberto. He’s your son, after all. No need to treat him like a prisoner. This is his home too.”

When his father breathes out a really long sigh that sounds like it has a difficult time leaving his lungs, Eduardo briefly wishes he’ll run out of oxygen and drop like a fly onto the carpet – but he doesn’t really want that, obviously. He loves his father, he actually does, but right now he’s angry and can’t be held accountable for the thoughts that fly through his head.

“So, it’s ok, right?” Eduardo looks to his father for an answer this time, mostly because he wants to see the defeat in his eyes (he really needs to get a handle on his evil half).

His father shakes his head and, through gritted teeth, says, “Yes,” and goes back to his spot on the couch.

“Bring your friend – Mark, you said, right? He’s the one you told us about all the time last year? – down for dinner in twenty minutes, ok?”

Eduardo nods exaggeratedly and wraps his mother tightly in his arms, presses a firm kiss to her cheek. “Thanks, mãe.”

She pats his back, whispers, “No problem, querido,” and playfully ruffles his hair. “Now go. Get ready for dinner.”

\- - -

It turns out that Eduardo’s father actually really _likes_ Mark. He laughs at Mark’s snide comments and agrees with his views on the status of the economy. Mark’s pretty clearly a Democrat and Eduardo’s father is a Republican but they don’t butt heads when they discuss how unlikely it is that the Clinton surplus the federal budget was still riding pre-9/11 will have any significant impact on how well Bush does in his presidency. It’s all a matter of how well he handles war and how shallowly or deeply he digs himself into a hole. The public won’t remember the surplus when 2004 comes around; all they’ll remember is how Bush acted when their safety was threatened.

Eduardo doesn’t think he’s ever heard Mark talk like this.

His father asks Mark about his career plans and Mark isn’t sarcastic. He says, “I want to make something that’s not expendable,” and Eduardo furrows his brow because he’s not sure he understands. Mark doesn’t care about money; it’s why he didn’t sell Synapse to Microsoft. Making something that’s “not expendable” would be the complete opposite of not caring about money. He’d need money to run this “not expendable” thing, probably lots of it if the programs Mark’s made before are any indication of how good it could be. But, Eduardo realizes, it’s not really worth an argument now, honestly. Probably not worth an argument ever, or at least not until this thing comes into existence, so he shoves his thoughts aside.

His mother is not nearly as impressed with Mark as his father is but she does smile at him. She seems to like his sarcasm and his dry wit but the conversation about politics and economics bores her about as much as it bores Eduardo (that’s actually kind of bad, he thinks, being an Economics major and all; he should be participating but he’s too shocked at how well the discussion is going without him to contribute). Eventually, she excuses herself to start putting up the dishes and Eduardo is left to be a third wheel all by himself because she doesn’t ask him to help her. In fact, she gives him this look of _he’s your friend, you’re going to deal with it_ when she takes his plate.

He has to force himself not to look too unhappy.

“You really hit it off with my dad,” Eduardo says later that evening, when they’re finally allowed to go back to Eduardo’s room. Mark’s already at his computer again, writing whatever new project he has in mind. Something that will connect students better, help them choose what classes to take, is what Mark explained before.

Mark mumbles, “Yeah, he’s a cool guy,” but doesn’t acknowledge Eduardo any other way.

Eduardo sighs. “I didn’t think you would.”

“Why, because you don’t?”

He blinks. “What the fuck, man?”

All Mark does is shrug.

“Well, fuck you too,” Eduardo growls, and then he leaves his room and goes out to the patio, even though it’s pretty much completely dark now. Mark hasn’t even been here six hours and he’s already frustrating the shit out of him.

The thing that bothers Eduardo the most is that he just _lets_ Mark do this to him. He always has. From the day he met him to now, he hasn’t learned a thing.

He used to think that the only reason Mark ever says anything out loud is to prove to people that he’s not as antisocial as they make him out to be, but, as time marched on, he came to the conclusion that Mark is just a pathological asshole. Period. It won’t matter if they’re in line for pizza or standing outside a frat house waiting for entrance, Mark is predisposed to irritating the hell out of people. He could be saying anything that crosses his mind while they’re waiting for a theater ticket and strangers will turn around at every ridiculous comment – “Wardo, can’t you see it? If a sinkhole opens at our feet, it would swallow the entire university, eradicate our enemies and afford us the luxury of never having to put up with the sheer idiocy of collegiate mêlée ever again.” – and they’ll glare, wrinkle their noses, mutter something obtuse under their breaths.

And after, they’ll turn away, probably blaming Eduardo for allowing Mark in public in the first place. Like he should have known better than to drag the slimy little miscreant out where anybody could see him. Like he could have prevented the bestowal of Mark’s kind graces by smothering him with a pillow before leaving the dorm.

They just don’t understand that where Mark is concerned, Eduardo has absolutely no power. He can’t stop Mark from saying hurtful things or thoughtless things or outlandish things because Mark is like a force field. He’s selectively permeable, willing to let in only the most important opinions, and, a lot of the time, Eduardo doesn’t own one of those.

Well, maybe not a lot of the time. Just often enough that Eduardo feels even more inadequate than the time his father was upset with his SAT score – _“Dad, it’s 1,410 points, 190 less than a perfect score. How much more could I have done?” “If you had studied a little harder you could have done a lot more.”_ – and a knife twists in his gut to make it even worse than that because it’s _Mark_ and he’s supposed to be his best friend, he’s supposed to at least consider what he has to say.

But, in spite of it all, Eduardo always forgives him. He justifies himself by acknowledging that Mark’s only defense mechanism is douchebaggery. Being an idiot is just how he deals with anxiety. It’s in Mark’s genetic makeup; there’s nothing Eduardo can do to change that.

Mark can get away with anything, even if it cuts Eduardo to pieces.

So that’s how Eduardo goes back to his room about an hour later and says, to Mark’s back because Mark doesn’t seem to have turned away from his computer since Eduardo left him earlier, “I don’t care if you and my dad get along. Actually, it’s more favorable this way. Now I don’t have to worry about him getting annoyed with your presence for the next two weeks.”

“I’m glad you’ve realized the advantages of the situation, Wardo. I was hoping you wouldn’t stew over this issue for too long.” Mark looks over his shoulder and raises his eyebrows. Eduardo kind of wants to punch him in the face but then he says, “I wanted to get him off your back so I bullshitted him. I’m sorry if I offended you in any way,” and Eduardo suddenly has the urge to kiss him.

Which is weird, because he’s never felt that before and it should definitely not be happening. However, he can’t stop a blush from climbing up his neck and he ducks his head so he won’t see the look on Mark’s face when he realizes Eduardo’s now beet red. “I guess I appreciate it, then,” he mutters, and turns away to busy himself with getting clean clothes out of his dresser. “You can, um.” He whirls around again and Mark’s back at the computer, only he’s typing carefully this time, in a way that Eduardo’s never seen. He has to stop and catch his breath for a second because suddenly he’s feeling so many _things_. He can’t make sense of any of them. Swallowing hard past a knot in his throat, he twists a t-shirt in his hands and kicks uselessly at the carpet. “I’m going to shower and go to bed so, uh. Feel free to stay up ’til whenever but I can’t really sleep with you making noise in my room, so –”

“I’ll go to the guest room, yeah,” Mark finishes for him, saving him from more embarrassing stammering, and he grabs his computer and crosses the room in a few strides. He doesn’t look over when he says, “I’ll see you tomorrow.” Instead, he stares at his hand on the doorknob, and after a brief pause, in which he nods to himself like he’s affirming something or other, he leaves, door hissing shut in his wake.

Eduardo lets out a huge breath and stumbles confusedly out into the hall after him, glad the bathroom is in the opposite direction of the guest room so he won’t have to deal with this _thing_ , whatever it is, that’s pressing down on his chest in front of Mark.

\- - -

The rest of the week flies by surprisingly smoothly. Eduardo’s father was so impressed with Mark after dinner on Monday that he pulls Eduardo aside on a rare afternoon off, when Mark’s upstairs working on code, to tell him, “Your friend has a great head on his shoulders. You need to keep him around to see if it will rub off on you. He’s got good ideas about business that you could learn a lot from.”

Eduardo huffs and is about to say something smart, something contemptuous along the lines of, “I wasn’t planning on pushing him away just because you like him, _father_ ,” but his father adds:

“Don’t screw this up.”

And Eduardo deflates. He doesn’t let Mark know about the conversation later, when they’re both silent in his room, Mark click-clacking away on the keyboard and Eduardo turning the pages of his latest _Economist_ issue. It’s better, he’s sure, to keep it to himself because Mark pretended to be someone his father would approve of to get his father off his back and that’s got to _mean something_ after all. No point in making Mark feel guilty when he honestly had only good intentions in mind.

So when Mark finally powers off his computer for the rest of the evening and looks at Eduardo expectantly, like he can see right through him with that unnervingly steady gaze, Eduardo shoves his magazine aside, even though he’s in the middle of a piece on page 169 about detecting tsunamis, and shrugs. “What do you want to do now?”

Mark raises his eyebrows. “We should get some ice cream or something, I don’t know. I’m pretty sure whatever you’re reading is terribly boring and I’m done with my stuff for now and your house is nice and all, but there’s not much to do once night’s fallen, so we should go out.”

Eduardo snorts, shaking his head, but gets up all the same because he can understand Mark’s logic and he doesn’t really want to be cooped up in his room for the rest of the night anyway. “Fine. But frozen yogurt is better.” Mark makes a face. “I promise. Come on.”

So that’s how they end up on the grass in the backyard, eating vodka floats in really large Yogen Fruz containers, laughing stupidly in really high-pitched tones with their faces pressed against a ratty old blanket Eduardo procured from the garage. Mark’s cheeks are pink and his lips are sinfully red and Eduardo has to look away and sit up to eat some more before he starts to think very dirty things. He can’t have a crush on his best friend, that’s unacceptable, and he’s pretty sure his vodka-fied yogurt understands because it slips down his throat smoothly and doesn’t make him choke when he fleetingly wonders how Mark’s mouth would taste, if it’d be all bitter mango-y or if it’d mix with his own taste and become bitter mango-pineapple-y.

Mark looks at him skeptically but that’s as far as they get into deep questions territory. He seems to be content with Eduardo snappily asking, “What?” and he doesn’t bring it up, not a single time, the rest of the week.

\- - -

On Saturday, Eduardo drags Mark out to the beach at eleven o’clock in the morning because they haven’t really done anything exciting yet. At least at the beach there are girls they can look at, water they can swim in, hot dog stands they can buy bad food from. The most thrilling thing they’ve done to date is steal alcohol from Eduardo’s father’s liquor cabinets and that only happened with some arm-twisting on Mark’s behalf, because even though Eduardo knows he can be a bad son (well, he really isn’t; he just has some terrible thoughts every now and then) he doesn’t ever want his father to blame him for anything. And since none of his siblings are here for him to thrust any blame onto, it only makes sense that he’s a little hesitant about lifting anything from his father. But Mark’s always been persuasive and Eduardo’s a sucker for Mark’s logic, so they ended up outside making vodka floats.

Today, though, Eduardo’s determined to show Mark that they actually can have fun in Miami; it’s not all about shopping (they actually haven’t done that yet, but that’s mostly because Eduardo knows there’s no point in taking Mark down to Bayside when he won’t even enjoy himself, yacht tours or not) or hiding in movie theaters or eating Cuban food. Maybe swimming in saltwater and getting a second-degree burn isn’t everyone’s idea of fun, but Eduardo could care less at this point what Mark wants. Cabin fever in the summer is so deplorable it’s beyond the point of return and he has to fix that.

So he refuses to take lip from Mark when they spread out their towels in a spot that’s only partially shaded by the palm tree they manage to find a clear place under. Mark doesn’t look particularly happy to be here but he doesn’t look totally displeased either; Eduardo decides to mark this outing as a victory even though he hasn’t exactly gotten Mark to take off his shirt yet.

“You’re going to burn anyway, you know,” says Eduardo, waving a can of sunscreen in front of Mark’s face.

Mark swats at him and wrinkles his nose. “There’s a reason I brought my hoodie.”

“Why, so you could get heatstroke and maybe die? I don’t think that would convince your parents that you’re very good at taking care of yourself, man.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re the most in danger of losing credibility if I die under your watch.”

Eduardo glares and kicks sand at him. “Put the damn sunscreen on. It’s, like, SPF 1000, so you won’t turn red.”

“Actually, it’s quite clearly…” Mark snatches the can from Eduardo and looks at it closely. “SPF 85. So.”

“Just put it on. It’s easy spray-on sunscreen. It’s not that much of a hassle.”

“I could get it in my eyes.”

“Not if you’re careful.”

“Well, I’m not the most careful person, you know that very well.”

Eduardo huffs, “Forget it, Mark. Burn if you want to but I’m not taking you to the hospital,” and turns away to take off his t-shirt. He hears Mark mutter under his breath, “Fine, have it your way,” and can’t do anything but turn back and smile.

“What are you looking at?”

Shrugging, Eduardo takes back the can from Mark once he’s tossed aside his shirt, gestures for him to spin around and mists him with the spray. Two minutes later, it’s almost as if they’re not at the beach at all because the only thing Eduardo can smell is the overpowering scent of something vaguely coconut-y, a breeze coming off the water blowing sunscreen right back into Eduardo’s face. He coughs and sticks the can under his shirt so it won’t burst in the heat.

“All right, let’s go,” Mark says, not even waiting for Eduardo’s input before he’s starting to walk away. Eduardo reels him back by the elbow, though, and raises an eyebrow at him. “What is it _now_?”

“You know you have to wait a few minutes, right?”

Mark just blinks.

“Have you never been to the beach before?”

“No, I _have_ been, thank you very much.”

“Yeah, and how long ago was that?”

“Wardo, you can let go of me now.” Mark shakes him off. “And it was on a vacation before I started high school. We went to Norfolk for a week and we did a lot of jet skiing. Or it felt like a lot anyway, since we did it twice. But, yeah, we also went to Washington D.C., so I learned a lot about sunburns that summer.”

“Oh,” mutters Eduardo, rubbing his hand up his arm self-consciously and looking down at the sand. He’s struck with this odd sense of jealousy, like he’s maybe a tad bit envious of Mark’s ability to recall something fun from his childhood. The most memorable family vacation he ever went on was to Miami before they moved here for good, and all they did was scope out places to live and go to a few different restaurants that had awesome kids’ menus he could draw on.

Mark kicks sand at him this time and asks, “Wardo, can we go now?”

“Yeah, yeah, let’s do that,” Eduardo mumbles, even though he just told Mark to let the sunscreen sink in first, and then he kicks off his flip-flops and takes off toward the water, running because the sand’s a little too hot to walk on.

\- - -

The thing about swimming is that it’s so easy to get exhausted. They both try to stay in the water for more than a few hours, just floating around on their backs and letting the waves wash them back to shore like they had been doing all along, but Eduardo ends up swallowing too much salt and Mark gets annoyed speaking to the other nosy beachgoers around them, so they go back and crash onto their towels.

Mark, on his stomach, head pillowed on his t-shirt, is the first to fall asleep. Eduardo tries but he’s always been paranoid about falling asleep in public places. He contents himself with downing a bottle of water and reading a book instead. And if Mark makes noises and moves closer to him, well, he doesn’t mind reveling in that either.

He’s pathetic, is what he is, pining over his best friend when he’s never done that before. It doesn’t really make sense that after spending so much time together at Harvard he would only _now_ develop feelings for him. That couldn’t possibly be a good thing, right? He obviously knows about the whole “best friends make the best lovers” thing because Hollywood gets a kick out of that plotline often enough, but there’s no way that can actually be real. Life doesn’t work like a movie; there’s never really an “aha!” moment that leads to clumsy stumbling over to a recently-discovered love interest, just a “well, shit, I’m fucked” moment that leads to obsessive thinking about what the other person would do if you ever made a move on them. That’s not exactly conducive to a working relationship. Plus, he’s pretty sure Mark would have to consider him a best friend too and he’s not completely convinced that he does, surprise visit and impressing his father aside.

And there’s also the fact that he’s just now realizing he’s attracted to his _best friend_ and that’s not really all that acceptable, in his family or anywhere else. It’s causing him way too much stress and if Mark ever did reciprocate Eduardo’s feelings, Eduardo couldn’t reel him into a relationship without feeling guilty for being so confused about _everything_. It wouldn’t be fair to either of them but least of all to Mark.

So he resolves to let this infatuation thing go because it can only end in disaster anyway. That’s all it _can_ do because when he loves – and he’s already getting ahead of himself and he’s not even in love with Mark or anything, at least not yet, and he doesn’t think he will be (he might hope so but – _no_ he really doesn’t need to be thinking about this) – he loves completely and Mark’s a jerk who would probably use that against him, which would just lead to heartbreak and a terrible parting of ways. Eduardo would really like to keep his best friend, thank you very much, even if it means having to keep quiet about his feelings. It’s not too hard a decision to make, not really.

A girl comes along eventually, wearing a fairly modest bikini but swinging around her beautiful brown hair and effectively jarring him. She crouches beside Eduardo and Eduardo immediately sets down his book to give her his full attention. Her smile is nice, teeth all straight and pearly, and her eyes are unbelievably blue. She looks like she’s stepped out of a Victoria’s Secret catalogue.

“Hi,” she says, handing him a piece of bright-colored cardstock with blocky text on it. “I’m Liz.”

Smiling, Eduardo props himself up on his elbow and extends his free hand to her. “Eduardo.”

She giggles – _giggles_ – and shakes his hand. “Um, one of my friends is having a party tonight. It’s just five dollars at the gate and there will be live music for a while. You know, drinks. All for five dollars – you should come!”

He nods down at the flyer and looks back up at her, taming his eyes so they won’t start roaming. “Yeah, that sounds good.”

“And bring your friend too. The more, the merrier, right?”

“Guess so,” he laughs, endeared by the rosy color of her cheeks and the flitting of her eyes. He doesn’t think she should be nervous around him, not by a long shot because he’s just Eduardo, he’s harmless. He tries to give her the most reassuring smile he can because he never wants anyone to feel uncomfortable around him, and he says, “We’ll be there.”

Then she looks hopeful for a moment and Eduardo figures a little flirting can’t hurt. He’s got to deal with his feelings for Mark – his Mark Feelings, he thinks he’ll call them – somehow and there really is no better way than being proactive on the dating front to prove to himself that he’s not _completely_ gone on Mark.

She leaves him her number, seven blocky digits written on the back of his invitation with a pen he dug out from his beach bag, and walks away, looking every so often over her shoulder at him and waving goodbye when she gets too far for them to keep staring at each other. Eduardo feels good and turns back to his book, a goofy grin on his face, all ideas about him and Mark out of his head for the time being.

After a while, he looks over at Mark. He’s not snoring or anything, just breathing quietly and blowing the hair on his arms away with every exhale. He looks peaceful, actually, much like the way he looks when he’s coding with a good idea of what he’s going to accomplish or when he was nodding off next to Eduardo the other night after having enough to drink. His skin is so smooth, tinged red by the sun, no creases of concentration anywhere on his face. All Eduardo wants to do is kiss him, trail his lips down the bridge of his nose and skim his fingers across the soft, fair hairs of his eyebrows. Mark’s lips look dry and he wants so badly to kiss him that he almost doesn’t realize he’s leaning down. He jerks back, heart pounding in his chest, and distracts himself by pulling his t-shirt out from under his elbows and lifting Mark’s head to pillow it before he starts to inhale sand.

So much for Operation Flirt with all Girls. It’s clearly not going to help.

He sighs and looks back at his book. The words blur together. Instead of reading, he thinks about the jolt of electricity that passed between his and Mark’s fingers when they passed a bottle of wine back and forth the night before. Eduardo had bought a six-dollar bottle from Publix right at closing and they spent a few hours lying poolside, handing the bottle to each other every couple of swallows, steadily getting drunker. At one point, Eduardo had reached out for it too early and his fingers grasped futilely at the air until Mark finally set the bottle in his palm. He closed his fingers right over Mark’s and either none of them paid it any mind or none of them decided it was worth it to move away. They stayed there, holding hands for a few minutes, until Mark coughed and shook Eduardo off. Eduardo had blushed deeply and taken a long pull. When he looked over at Mark, he’d fallen asleep and it was like nothing had happened.

Mark breaks into Eduardo’s thoughts with a clear, “Wardo?” and Eduardo does his best not to jump five inches off the ground.

“Hey,” he says, schooling his voice into sounding normal. His book has been laying spine-up on his chest for way longer than he’s aware and his eyes feel kind of gritty. He must have fallen asleep. Sighing, he pushes himself up onto his elbows and looks down at Mark. “Nice nap?”

“I think I should be asking _you_ that.” Mark smiles that sarcastic smile of his.

Eduardo finds himself stupidly thinking he wants to kiss it off his face. He shakes head of his thoughts and rolls his eyes at Mark. “Yeah, well, whatever. Listen, we were invited to a party.”

Mark’s eyebrows arch up. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. It’s five dollars at the gate but there’ll be live music and lots of alcohol.”

“How’d you hear about this?”

“Oh.” Swallowing, Eduardo sits up and draws his legs underneath himself, Indian style. “A girl came by and –”

“Was she hot?”

The look of genuine interest on Mark’s face throws Eduardo for a loop. “Um, yeah, I guess she was. I, you know, didn’t look at her like that, it would’ve been rude.”

“Right,” Mark says, nodding, and also sits up. Eduardo catches sight of the bright red patch of skin on the back of Mark’s neck before Mark clamps his hand over it and rubs. “So we’re going?”

“Yeah, if you want to.”

All Mark does is blink, as if to say _no shit, you dumbass, booze, girls, music, sounds like a hell of a party_ , and Eduardo actually does feel stupid. What was he even doing, thinking Mark would want to do something alone with him on a Saturday night when there’s a party they could go to with all the alcohol you could want.

He mutters, “Right, ok, yeah. Let’s go to the party,” and picks up his book, bites his lip to keep from frowning.

\- - -

Eduardo doesn’t find Liz that night. There are so many people, so many beautiful girls, so many of them with long, brown hair, that he gives up after half an hour of searching and settles for the first girl who jumps at him. She’s pretty, too, like all these other regular beach-goers, the ones that lay out an hour a day just to turn the right shade of bronze before classes start up again and they have to hide in libraries and dorm rooms until their color fades and it’s winter and they can’t do it again. Her hair is sandy blond and there’s a braid of it around her head like a crown that Eduardo really wants to smooth his fingers over, just to feel the perfect texture of it. The dress she’s wearing is the kind that hugs all curves and seems uncomfortable to walk in but it looks so good on her – the yellow of it just really offsets her skin tone and it’s like she’s glowing – that Eduardo ignores his usual distaste for showy outfits.

It helps that this girl, named Mandy, has proven to be pretty smart in the fifteen, twenty, thirty – Eduardo’s bad at keeping track of conversation times – minutes they’ve been talking. She goes to U Miami and is also going to be a junior a few weeks from now. Pediatrics is what she wants to devote herself to, so Eduardo tells her about his sister, who’s actually at that same school now and wants to work in pedodontics. It strikes up a nice aside about how Mandy came to her decision to work with children. If this party were anywhere else, at any other time, she’d be the kind of girl he’d want to date.

But he keeps glancing across the room at Mark every few minutes. Mark, who’s stunted in the social niceties department, seems to be engaging in a non-confrontational discussion with a cute girl. They’re actually laughing and neither of them looks forced doing it. She’s not put off by anything he says and Eduardo has to pull himself out of that train of thought because he doesn’t even want to wonder about the reasons why he’s so interested in the dynamics of Mark and his new friend. He’s had enough of this crush.

He needs something to drink.

“Would you like a refill?” he asks Mandy, unaware if he’s interrupting her or not. She doesn’t seem to mind, though, because she hands him her cup and smiles and that’s all Eduardo needs for confirmation that she’s not hurt by Eduardo’s abrupt decision to cut her off.

The drinks table is so much more peaceful to stand by than that wall. He doesn’t have to look at the back of Mark’s head or the way the girl he’s talking to curls her hand around his biceps and leans up to whisper in his ear. He doesn’t have to think about what it would feel like to touch Mark like that himself, to slip his fingers under the sleeve of his shirt (it’s actually Eduardo’s blue Polo that he’s wearing because he claimed that he didn’t have any more clean, stainless shirts to wear tonight and it looked so good on him that Eduardo couldn’t tell him to put it back on the hanger he stole it off) and touch the sun-warmed skin of his muscles, finger the curves they make in his arm. He doesn’t have to pretend that it fails to annoy him because he can pout down at the punch all he wants for the next few minutes until he has to go back to Mandy.

This much yearning for his best friend isn’t socially acceptable, he’s pretty sure.

When he returns, he pointedly ignores Mark’s existence and hands Mandy her cup with a smile, all teeth bared as not creepily as he can manage.

“So how do I know you didn’t slip something in my drink?” she asks teasingly, voice lilting up in pitch in an adorable impression of a squeak.

Eduardo can’t help but laugh at that, at everything. What’s not to laugh at, anyway? Just because Mark’s actually succeeding tonight on the girl front it doesn’t mean Eduardo can’t enjoy himself, right? He can have fun with Mandy and not feel terrible for it at all. He has no reason to feel terrible for it.

“I mean,” she goes on to add, “guys are kind of notorious for things like that.”

“Do I really look like someone who would do that? Do I look like a rapist to you?”

She giggles. “No, but neither do most of the guys who carry roofies around in their pocket.”

Smirking, Eduardo pretends to dig around in his pocket for said drug and then shows her how empty-handed he comes out. If she’s smart, it probably won’t trick her. “See? Nothing there.”

“Oh, please, you probably only carried one and then threw the bag out before you could get here.”

“All right, all right. You’re right, I did put something in your drink,” he laughs, rolling his eyes and licking his lips. “I just didn’t think you’d want to be with me any other way, you know?”

“And that’s the funny thing about it,” she says, and there’s this knowing look in her eyes as she hands him back her cup. “Some of the guys who do it act as if they can’t score on their own but all they really need to do is sweet talk. Now, just to prove yourself to me, drink from both of those.”

Eduardo shakes his head amusedly and takes sips from each cup in his hand and smacks his lips playfully. “Mm, delicious. Tastes just like a date rape drug.”

Mandy beams at him, lips stretched around her teeth thinly but not in a completely hideous way, just in an endearing way. She takes her drink back and takes a long gulp of it before she says, “I knew you were a decent man, Eduardo.”

“I try my hardest to be, actually, so I’m glad I’ve managed to get that across. It’s kind of exactly what I was hoping for, that you’d fall for my charm.”

“Oh, you might be taking it too far, actually. I’m not charmed. I’m not _that_ easy.”

“That so?” Eduardo grins over the brim of his cup and takes a few steps closer to her, finally bridging the distance between them and setting his hand bravely on her waist. She gives in, hard to get façade faltering, and immediately covers his hand with her own tiny one. Her eyes sparkle and everything goes kind of foggy as Eduardo focuses his gaze on her alone, finally able to get Mark out of his peripheral vision, out of his mind. “I’m not saying you’re easy or anything but you seem pretty well captivated by me.”

Mandy shakes her head slowly, bottom lip caught under her teeth, and moves even closer, so close Eduardo can feel her stomach press against his own and her bare leg touch his. She says, coy words just above a whisper, “Well, I can’t say that you’re unattractive because you very clearly are. And I can’t say you’re a jerk because you’re a total sweetheart.” Her fingers pull on his wrist until his hand’s pressed into the small of her back. “But I can say that I’d really like you to kiss me right now.”

Eduardo gulps. “Yeah?”

“Yes.” Humming, she quickly downs the rest of her drink, takes his and sets both their cups on the mantle behind them.

So Eduardo licks the last bit of punch off his lips and leans down to kiss her, really tentative at first. Even as she slides both her hands up his chest and laces them behind his neck, he doesn’t think he should push her any further. Even as she fits her leg between his thighs and nips at his bottom lip, he can’t make himself take advantage of her – not that he’s taking advantage of her, exactly, since she’s really urging him on. She’s making soft noises and massaging the back of his scalp and whispering, “Come on, Eduardo, we’re just having fun.”

But he can’t, ok, this isn’t how he does things. He can’t make out with this girl – this beautiful, intelligent girl – when dozens of people are milling about and loud music is playing in the background and Mark’s across the room. Just the thought of doing anything unbecoming in public makes Eduardo’s stomach lurch; if there was food in his stomach, he’d probably throw it up. He’s just not built for the public display of affection thing, he never has been. It’s the reason why all three of his high school girlfriends dumped him. They didn’t think handholding was a good enough public gesture and they broke it off to find someone who’d want to make out with them at their lockers between classes.

He can’t stand here and let everyone watch him make out with Mandy and start judging. It’s not fair that people could form opinions about both of them, think she’s desperate and he’s unwilling or something. He’s not unwilling; he just can’t do this in front of everyone. And she’s not desperate, she’s just – well, she’s just horny, maybe, because she’s still making these quietly obscene sounds while all Eduardo is doing is kissing her and rubbing the small of her back with the side of one hand and gripping her waist with the other. There’s nothing too dirty about the situation but it’s getting there.

Worrying if people are watching is what gets him to open his eyes. He darts them around quickly, suspicious, just trying to find anyone giving them a disgusted look so he can have an excuse to put the brakes on this charade and suggest they go upstairs. He doesn’t expect to lock gazes with Mark and he doesn’t expect the reaction he gets from him either. Mark’s staring at him blankly, blue eyes unblinking, in that way Eduardo’s seen before when Mark’s annoyed by whoever he’s talking to. Only now he looks kind of sad too.

That might just be Eduardo’s subconscious talking, though. Wouldn’t it be convenient if Mark were jealous of Mandy, if he wanted to take her place?

It’s a crazy thought and he pushes it down, way down where he won’t notice it anymore.

Ten seconds is how long they stare at each other before Mandy tugs on Eduardo’s hair and Eduardo realizes he hasn’t been kissing her. This is stupid, he thinks, so incredibly stupid. A beautiful girl obviously wants to have sex with him and he’s obsessing over his best friend instead. He closes his eyes as soon as Mark makes a snippy comment to the girl he’s talking to and grabs her cup before he walks away. He doesn’t want to see her reaction because he doesn’t want to wonder what Mark said. All he wants to do is take Mandy upstairs and stop this from getting out of hand.

\- - -

Almost an hour has passed since Eduardo last saw Mark. He’s been searching for him for what feels like ages and he hasn’t even caught a whiff of him. The girl Mark was talking to earlier told Eduardo he’d never come back with her drink and then asked him to relay the very typical “you’re an asshole” message as soon as he found him, which is starting to seem like a very unlikely possibility.

So now he’s dialing Mark’s cell phone for the hundredth time and still reaching voicemail. He’s running out of options.

He probably shouldn’t be down here searching for Mark anyway. He should still be upstairs with Mandy, who was so nice and understanding about his unwillingness to go forward. He should still be up there, kissing her breathless and making her feel good. He barely knows her but he feels like he owes her that, just for not being bummed about him not sharing her same desires. She even gave him her phone number, telling him to call her when he’s figured it all out, and the scrap of paper she wrote it on is burning a hole in his pocket right now.

The second he finds a trashcan, he’s going to toss it because no one deserves to be led on and he never plans on using that number for any kind of favor.

Eduardo’s search leads him out into the humid night. The further away he gets from the front door, the more he’s beginning to think that Mark left without letting Eduardo know. It’s not a good feeling, thinking your friend has abandoned you.

That’s probably why he’s so happy he finds Mark sitting on the hood of Eduardo’s car, so he doesn’t have to consider that possibility anymore. (It has nothing to do with the fact that he hasn’t even had the chance to tell Mark about his feelings for him, of course not.)

But he has to pretend to be angry, at least, so Eduardo rounds the front of the car and folds his arms, gives Mark this appraising look and raises his eyebrows. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” he says, voice steady.

Mark blinks at him then goes back to taking a pull from his beer bottle. His lips come away wet and Eduardo has to try very hard not to look at them.

When it becomes apparent that Mark isn’t going to respond, Eduardo presses, “Why’d you leave like that?”

Mark shrugs this time.

“What the fuck is your problem?”

“I don’t have a fucking problem.” Mark snaps his gaze back to Eduardo and narrows his eyes a little, looks about as menacing as Eduardo has ever seen him.

It hurts a little.

“Jesus. Why don’t you go back to that girl and leave me the fuck alone? I was perfectly fine without you coming out here to haggle me, so.”

Knot rising in his throat, Eduardo does the exact opposite of what Mark tells him and joins him on the hood of the car. Right now, he doesn’t really care if the metal bends out of shape under their weight – not that it should, anyway – because he just wants to get this dilemma out of the way. There was the slightest trace of bitterness in Mark’s words, barely there long enough for anyone who’s untrained in Markisms to notice, and Eduardo needs to figure out where it’s coming from. Mark couldn’t _possibly_ be jealous; it must just be the beer talking.

“Wardo, seriously, there’s nothing to talk about.”

He shakes his head and puts his hand on Mark’s jaw, yanking his face over so that he’ll actually look him in the eyes. If he lies, fine, but at least Eduardo would’ve gotten his attention. “What is this about?”

Hissing, “What is what about?” Mark shakes Eduardo’s hand off and shifts away. The way he draws up his knees and looks morose when he drains the rest of his beer makes Eduardo think of a petulant kid. His bottom lip’s all puffy and Eduardo wants to, very ill-advisedly, lean over and nip it.

“Was that girl not good enough for you or something?”

“What girl?”

“The one you were talking to.”

“Oh.” Mark aims his bottle at the bushes and tosses it. Glass shatters as it slips through the thin branches to the ground. “It doesn’t matter.”

“You must have had a good reason to just walk out on her like that.”

He turns his face to Eduardo, expression blank, and just blinks.

“Ok, fine. Don’t tell me.” Sighing, Eduardo stretches out his legs and looks up at the sky. He wonders if he sounds wistful when he asks, “Wanna get out of here?”

It’s probably just his imagination playing tricks on him because when Mark says, “Yeah,” it sounds kind of wrecked and that’s just not the way Mark talks.

\- - -

Eduardo’s really not _that_ drunk.

The beer he stole from the party (stole, at _Mark’s_ insistence, as if he has no mind of his own, as if he has to do everything Mark tells him to do) is warm at this point, yeah, but it’s not like he hasn’t had lots of beer before. He likes to think his tolerance is pretty high, especially now that he’s gone to college and experienced the party scene and even owns a fake ID so that he can drink whenever he wants. It’s not like he’s a novice, not like this is the first time he’s ever gotten drunk on a beach before.

Not that he’s drunk, because he’s not. He’s a little tipsy, maybe, but nothing more.

Mark, though – Mark is pretty drunk.

“Wardo, pass me that –” Mark pauses to cough into his arm. “That bottle, by your elbow.”

Eduardo laughs and nudges it over, watches the sand stick to it as it rolls over to Mark. “There.”

Mark smiles, expression small and weird-looking on his face, and opens the bottle with his teeth, as if his hands are too delicate to twist off a cap. It’s possible they are, since they’re extra important to the work he does, but Eduardo’s spent a lot of time looking at Mark’s hands. They’re not delicate in the slightest. His fingertips look rough, especially the pads of his pointer and index. Probably because he spends so much time popping open cans of tuna and Red Bull.

And Eduardo’s watched Mark open plenty a beer before, so he doesn’t get why Mark wouldn’t use his hands now. It’s got to be less painful than opening with your teeth, for sure.

So Eduardo asks, “Why din’t you use your hands?” after taking a long pull from his own beer and blinks down at Mark, who’s lying on the sand with his beer balanced precariously on his chest. One sudden movement and it’ll tip over, splashing Mark in the face and probably getting on Eduardo too.

Mark’s staring too intently at his bottle to answer, so Eduardo snatches it and raises his eyebrows in challenge. Mark sits up and smacks Eduardo in the arm, grunting something unintelligible and undoubtedly rude as he tries to scramble over his legs and get the beer back. Eduardo holds it as far out of reach as he can but the more Mark tries, looking and sounding obscene and ridiculous, the less successful Eduardo is. His shoulders start to hunch over in laughter and his arms are involuntarily folding in so he can grab his sides.

It’s not really too hard after that for Mark to wrangle the beer from Eduardo, who falls onto his back in hysterics. Mark crashes down on top of him, though, beer spilling everywhere. Their chests get soaked in warm alcohol and Eduardo would care more – seeing as both the ruined shirts belong to him – if he weren’t laughing so hard at the image of a deranged Mark wanting his beer back, flailing his arms around like the undead or something.

“Fuck, Wardo, that was the _last one_ ,” Mark whines, voice uncharacteristically high-pitched and maybe a little too close to Eduardo’s ear. “The _last one_ , Eduardo, Jesus fucking Christ.”

Eduardo stops laughing because Mark’s breath puffs at the hinge of his jaw and that’s just not something Eduardo’s wired to deal with. Accidental brushes of the hand, sure. Elbow nudges, he’s been schooled on those long enough that if it was a course it’d been an A plus on his report card. Mark _breathing_ on him? That’s way out of Eduardo’s jurisdiction.

What, exactly, should you do when the person you have a crush on is _breathing on you_?

Eduardo’s brain very possibly short-circuits. He can feel his nerve endings fraying before he can feel Mark sagging his weight on him, like he’s there to stay. A very sudden, very hard knot rises in Eduardo’s throat, making it impossible for him to voice his concern for this position. He may not know how to deal with Mark right now but he knows how to deal with this particular situation. He’s made out with plenty of drunken people before and each time it started with some girl throwing herself at him and whispering right in his ear.

That’s kind of what Mark’s doing, breathing on Eduardo’s skin and all that jazz. Only difference is he probably doesn’t want to make out with Eduardo, like all those girls. He’s probably just using Eduardo as a mattress or something, his face a pillow for Mark’s stupid hair.

But that doesn’t make Eduardo want Mark any less.

“You going to or what?” Mark’s saying, mouth moving sinfully slow on Eduardo’s jaw.

This is _not_ a good situation. Eduardo shivers, clears his throat and forces himself not to focus on Mark’s wet lips when he turns his head to look at Mark, effectively disconnecting Mark’s mouth from his face. “Going to what?” he asks, raspy and shaky, as if he needs to be any more obvious.

When Mark responds, “Drive us back,” he looks at Eduardo with wide, watery eyes and Eduardo can’t stand that. He can’t stand Mark giving him so much attention, can’t stand touching him –

And yet none of that seems to matter because the next thing that he knows, he’s kissing Mark, wet and forceful, all the words he wanted to say disappearing. Mark tastes as bitter as all the beer he’s consumed tonight but Eduardo couldn’t give more of a shit, he’s so busy pushing his tongue into Mark’s mouth. He wants to kiss Mark so hard that they’ll break away tasting like each other.

Eduardo rolls them over so Mark’s the one writhing on the sand, clutching at hair and pressing his heels into calves. It’s so good, so incredible, that Eduardo only now realizes Mark is actually kissing him _back_. He’s fitting his mouth around Eduardo’s, sucking on Eduardo’s tongue and running his own along the back of Eduardo’s teeth. He’s leaning up on one elbow and fisting Eduardo’s hair. He’s _groaning_ and making outrageous noises and Eduardo can barely believe this is happening.

This, them – _they’re_ happening and it feels so fucking good.

\- - -

Time catches up with them that night and they have to scramble to get back to Eduardo’s house before curfew. If Eduardo hadn’t felt drunk before he kissed Mark, he definitely feels it now – but it’s more of a giddy drunkenness than anything else. His vision’s not impaired or anything, he just feels so light and satisfied and he kind of wants to shout it out the window of his car so everyone will know. (He doesn’t, of course, because he’s not stupid and he doesn’t want to attract any police attention and he surely can’t risk embarrassing himself now that Mark’s kissed him, can he?)

When they get into the house, they’re just shy of four o’clock and Eduardo doesn’t bother tiptoeing around. From the foyer he can hear his dad snoring upstairs and it’d take a nuclear disaster to wake him from that deep a slumber. They pass through with no problems and then, without much thought, they both collapse onto Eduardo’s bed, so exhausted they don’t bother putting space between them at all.

The first thing Eduardo notices when he wakes up is that his hand is clenched in Mark’s shirt, numb because the angle cut off circulation at some point in the night. He blinks blearily at how loosely his fingers are curled around the fabric and wonders if it’s been like this all night, him pulling at Mark and unconsciously wanting him close. Heat creeps into his face when he notices the possibility of Mark having woken up to see how clingy Eduardo can get.

But Eduardo can’t seem to make himself let go, even with that realization. He finds he likes this too much, likes Mark in his bed too much, to be embarrassed by it. If Mark hadn’t responded to him as eagerly as he did, this would have been a totally different story. Eduardo would be backing away so far he’d probably land on the ground or something. But Mark _had_ responded well. He’d arched his back and touched Eduardo’s chest and bit Eduardo’s lip – those aren’t pure intentions. Eduardo has nothing to be scared of; if Mark were going to punch Eduardo, he would’ve done it before Eduardo sucked a hickey onto his collarbone.

Eduardo’s eyes dart up to Mark’s neck at the memory of pushing his shirt out of the way. Mark had actually whimpered when Eduardo nibbled on his skin and it had made Eduardo so hot that he pulled away to catch his breath. He’d never thought Mark capable of such noises. Now, seeing the light-colored bruise low on Mark’s neck, under the distended collar of the beer-ruined Polo, Eduardo is convinced. Debauched, his new favorite brand of Mark.

Sighing quietly, he slides his hand up Mark’s side, fabric bunching underneath his palm. He just wants to lie here, feeling Mark breathe, watching him sleep like he’s never really had the chance to in the past. There are so many good things that can come of this, if Mark will let _this_ happen. Eduardo’s willing – he’s more than willing, even, he’s anticipating. Mark couldn’t possibly backtrack on last night; he couldn’t possibly deny the obvious attraction between them. Eduardo’s been trying all week and has failed. Sure, Mark’s a genius, but he’s not a miracle worker. It wouldn’t be fair for him to be able to easily dismiss all those kisses and all those – stupid as it sounds – caresses.

Then again, if anyone could do it, Mark could. That would probably be the world’s cruelest joke but Eduardo couldn’t say he never saw it coming.

He’ll just have to wait for Mark to wake up, then.

Again, Eduardo sighs, only this time it’s less wistful and more weary, like he’s already conceded to losing something he doesn’t have. A tragedy before it’s even begun.

A knock on the door shakes him out of his thoughts and he scrambles to get to his feet, putting as much distance between him and Mark as possible before whoever’s at the door can start speculating. He gets to the door before anyone can open it, though, and he fits himself in the crack so no one can see inside. He doesn’t need his parents knowing anything about this.

“Mae,” he says in greeting. If he’s a bit breathless, he ignores it.

His mom gives him a suspicious look, probably because he’s still wearing the beer-stained shirt from last night. “Do you have any idea what time it is, Eduardo?”

He says, “No,” and it’s true because he hadn’t bothered to spare his alarm clock a single glance the entire time he’s been awake. Being too caught up in Mark has proven to have adverse effects on his common sense.

“Almost three,” she says, raising her eyebrows. “Did you forget the Liras are coming over for dinner this evening?”

Eduardo presses a hand to his forehead, the one that’s not holding the door close to his body, and closes his eyes. “Oh, man, I –”

“It’s at six. You need to get ready.”

“Yeah, no, right, I’m sorry.”

“Did you have a good night?”

He swallows to keep himself from smiling. He’s sure if he let a grin onto his face his mother would be able to see right through him. “Yes, I did,” he says slowly, words measured so that he won’t give too much away.

She doesn’t seem convinced but she doesn’t press for anything more. She just tells him, “You might want to make sure Mark’s up too,” looks pointedly over his head and then leaves.

Biting his lip, Eduardo slumps against the closed door and tips his head back, pinches his eyes closed against the sun that’s filtering in through the blinds. The breath he exhales is so long that he’s not sure how he doesn’t just collapse from lack of oxygen.

“Are you going to stand there the rest of the day or . . . ?”

Eduardo startles and looks over at Mark, who’s sitting up with a hand scratching his head. His cheek is pink from where it was pressed against the pillow all night, his eyes a little puffy, and Eduardo would jump him now if he didn’t think it’d be exceptionally inappropriate.

“Didn’t, uh, mean to wake you,” Eduardo coughs, curling his toes, nails scraping over the carpet.

“Actually, your mom did.” Mark yawns and the sound his jaw makes when it pops is loud enough to make Eduardo cringe. “They’re hosting a dinner?”

Nodding and mumbling, “Yeah, yeah,” Eduardo stares pointedly down at the floor. Maybe Mark won’t notice the red seeping into his skin tone this way.

“I should go shower then.”

He swallows hard and nods some more, acutely aware of how dumb he looks but also distinctly indifferent about it. So many conflicting ideas in his mind – there’s only so much Eduardo can do, and it’s what he’s doing now, acting as awkward as he can be.

“Right,” he hears Mark say, and then he hears the bed springs squeak and the unmistakable padding of footsteps muffled by carpet. He looks up just as Mark stops a few inches away from him, telling Eduardo to get out of the way with his eyes.

Chest tightening, Eduardo wraps one hand tightly around the doorknob and gives Mark yet another nod. “We’ll talk later, then.”

Mark doesn’t acknowledge him with anything more than a muttered, “Yeah, sure,” before he’s out the door, Eduardo frozen holding it open for him.

\- - -

Dinner’s a really civil thing, if anything maybe just a little too formal. Mark’s wearing a sweater vest over a white dress shirt and a nicer pair of jeans than usual and Eduardo’s in his customary slacks get-up, hair finally clean of all sand and syrup that worked its way in when he was too concerned with Mark’s mouth to care much about what havoc was being wrought on his head. They exchange small smiles, barely there upward twitches of the mouth, over their plates, and that’s it.

Eduardo can barely focus on his food the entire evening, way too distracted by what could happen when everyone’s gone, when it’ll just be Mark and Eduardo, faced with endless possibilities. He misses some of his father’s cues to enter the conversation and accidentally angers him when he doesn’t throw all his attention onto the Liras’ daughter Marina, but he can’t really help himself when he’s so convinced that this is actually it. Mark has _acknowledged_ it, it’s not just in Eduardo’s head anymore, and there’s really no room for anything else.

He’s thinking like a love struck teenager yet he’s not bothered by it in the slightest.

After dinner, Marina tells him that he’s a really nice guy and that whoever has him – “Or gets you?” she adds unsurely, the cutest little twinkle in her eyes – is lucky. So even with halfhearted conversation, Eduardo was able to charm her and get her to see that he’s smitten with someone else and she’s not even upset about it. She’s gracious and funny and then she’s out the door, trailing her parents into the driveway.

But of course he’s wrong to think he’ll get away with it. Just as he’s turning to go help his mom in the kitchen, where he hears Mark entertaining small talk and possibly doing dishes, his dad stops him with a tight grip on his shoulder and asks, glaring down at him, “What’s wrong with you?”

Eduardo swallows, confused. “Wh – what are you – there’s nothing wrong with –”

“You didn’t ask her out on a date,” his father elaborates, stern and unflagging, like he refuses to be otherwise swayed. Most of the time, Eduardo would try to sweet talk him down off that stupid, condescending ledge he’s constantly perched on, but right now he’s kind of stumped. Yes, he’s aware that this whole dinner was an attempt to get Eduardo attached to Marina but he didn’t think his father would be that upset if things didn’t work out. This has happened before, too many times to count. Eduardo’s never taken particular likings to any of the girls his dad has attempted to set him up with and usually he can get himself off the hook by fabricating something he didn’t like about her that he knows his dad wouldn’t like either. Right now, though, his dad seems too intent on blaming Eduardo.

“I didn’t like –”

“Bullshit, Eduardo.” Glaring, his father takes his hand off Eduardo’s shoulder and pokes him in the chest, right above his breast pocket. “There was nothing wrong with her. You were just too much of a coward to do something.”

Eduardo huffs and rubs his hand over the spot that was jabbed with a meaty finger. “I’m not a coward. I just don’t like her that way.”

“Why not?”

He narrows his eyes. “Because I don’t, Dad. She’s not my type.”

“No?” His father barks out a laugh and shakes his head. “What’s your type then, Eduardo? American? Blond hair, blue eyes? Eduardo, you know that –”

“That’s not it at _all_ , Dad.” Eduardo groans and throws his hands up in the air, already pacing around. “I just don’t want you to set –”

“If I don’t set you up, you’re not going to find the right suitor for –”

Scoffing, “The right _suitor_?” Eduardo turns sharply on his heel and points a glare at his father. “I don’t need a suitor. I don’t need anyone you want for me because I am perfectly capable of finding someone on my own.”

His father rolls his eyes. “You’re way behind in that department. You’re clearly never going to find the right person to carry the name –”

“Dad!” This conversation is bordering on crazy and pointless. “I don’t want you attempting to set me up with anyone anymore, ok? I can do it on my own.”

“If you could do it on your own, you would’ve brought someone home a long time ago, Eduardo.”

“I’m twenty years old! I haven’t found anyone I’d want to spend my life with yet!”

Clucking his tongue, his father says, “Eduardo, Eduardo,” like he’s trying to soothe a baby, and slips a hand back onto Eduardo’s shoulder. Eduardo glares at it, at the arthritis-crooked fingers, and wonders how much longer he’ll have to deal with his father’s unfailing lack of confidence in him, how much more he’ll have to do to show him that he’s not as idiotic as he seems to think he is. “When I was your age, I already knew exactly where my life was headed. I had a fiancé, I had a career, I had _stability_. You don’t have any of those things.”

“That’s because times have changed, Dad. I’m still in college,” mutters Eduardo through clenched teeth.

“You’re going to call Marina,” his father continues, as if Eduardo hadn’t said anything at all. His eyes are locked on Eduardo’s but it’s like he’s looking right through him. “You’re going to ask her on a date and then you’re going to be her boyfriend. Are we clear on that?”

Eduardo clenches his jaw and glares. “I’m not going out with her. If you try to make me, it’ll only backfire on you, so you really don’t want me calling her.”

The shock on his father’s face is worth the hard push in the chest, even if it knocks the wind out of him. “Go to your room,” he’s told, and he doesn’t spare a glance back as he climbs up the stairs.

\- - -

Mark walks in around ten, face completely shuttered but fingers knotted together, belying his steeliness. It’s clear he wants to ask what’s going on, Eduardo can feel the question on the tip of his own tongue, but he doesn’t think he has the right to tread that ground. Eduardo’s touched he even wants to know.

“Hey,” Eduardo offers from his place on his bed. He sets aside his book and pulls himself up so he’s sitting against the headboard.

Mark’s still hovering by the door when he returns the greeting. He’s not wearing his nicer clothes anymore, back in his shorts and t-shirt.

“Are you just going to stand there?” Amused, Eduardo pats the empty space beside him with his foot.

“I heard what you said to your father,” Mark blurts, fast and clipped, like he didn’t want to say anything in the first place.

Eduardo raises his eyebrows. “Ok?”

“And,” he continues, looking at Eduardo only for a second before he goes back to shuffling his feet on the carpet. “I thought you were going to give in.”

“I’m kind of done appeasing him, actually. I wish he would just see that and leave me alone.”

“Right, but he never will.”

“Mark, what is this about?”

At least that gets Mark’s attention but Eduardo squirms under his gaze. It’s gentle and intense and warm and cold all at the same time. “You really didn’t like that girl?”

“Marina?” Eduardo shakes his head. “I’m not even going to be here to be her boyfriend. It was a ridiculous idea. I don’t know how he even thought I’d start a relationship with someone who will be thousands of miles away in a few weeks.”

Mark seems placated by that, if the way his shoulders relax is any indication, and he softens his gaze a bit, drops it off to the side while he talks. “She didn’t seem like your type anyway.”

It’s not stupid to feel like his chest is going to collapse – it’s practical. He’s been feeling so many things lately, been receiving so many different cues from Mark all weekend, that it makes sense for him to be so stricken by Mark in this moment. Mark, always pretty steady in his actions, perturbed by something.

Cheesy as it is, Eduardo really, truly hopes he’s that something.

“What’s my type then, Mark?” he ends up asking, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth and chewing on it.

And Mark looks at him again, wavering a little this time, and Mark says, “I’m not sure but I know it’s not Brazilian brunette. I don’t think that’s exotic enough for you,” which draws a guffaw from Eduardo. “I wasn’t kidding, though.”

Smiling, Eduardo gets to his feet and approaches Mark, who takes a step back and turns pink, probably embarrassed he let Eduardo catch him so unsure of himself. God, if Eduardo could just bottle this moment forever, he would.

“Stop,” he says quietly, grabbing for Mark’s wrist with one hand. Mark tries to hide it behind his back but Eduardo just reaches around and pulls it out, gentle as he’s ever been. “I don’t want that girl, Mark.” He swallows hard and watches himself lace his fingers with Mark’s one by one. They’re both shaking but he wouldn’t have it any other way. “I don’t want any girl, actually.”

Mark rasps, “Well, yes, you’ve made that quite clear,” and then shakes his head at himself in distaste, as if he hadn’t really meant to say that at all. Which is ridiculous, because Eduardo’s always wanted to hear what Mark has to say.

So Eduardo whispers, “Didn’t think I’d made it clear enough,” and, after wrapping his free hand around Mark’s hip and pulling him in, he leans down to kiss him. This time, it’s everything their other ones weren’t – slow, cautious, partly and reluctantly appetent, fearful that if they push it any further it’ll break. It doesn’t make sense for a kiss like this to leave them both breathless but when Eduardo leans away from Mark’s lips, he can’t make his lungs expand fast enough to capture air, and Mark can’t either because he’s panting too.

“Wardo,” he says, and he sounds so wrecked that Eduardo just _can’t_ hear it anymore without having his heart break.

“Mark,” he says in kind, and then he takes Mark’s face in both his hands and kisses him harder than he’s ever kissed anyone before. Mark wraps his fingers loosely around Eduardo’s wrists and he’s right there with him, leaving all that reluctance stuff behind and slipping in tongue like he’s actually got purpose.

The rest of it is a blur of a flipped lock, kicked off pillows and choked sounds.


	2. the steps I took to get to look into your deepest feelings

Things are a lot better at Harvard than in Miami. They don’t have to worry about his parents walking in the front door when they’re stretched on top of each other on the couch or being quiet when they’re locked in his room, which is inconveniently located two doors down from his parents’. Sure, they have to calm it down whenever they’re in the presence of Chris and Dustin but it’s not like they’re constantly touching to begin with. Eduardo really likes kissing Mark whenever he wants but he understands he can’t just do that all the time.

He’s not even sure if Mark wants to get really involved, like in a relationship, or if he just wants to be friends with benefits or whatever.

They both have other things to do anyway. Eduardo has to campaign for his presidency in the Investment Association and it’s no easy task. Economics and business-minded people are a lot more difficult to win over than the general student population, which is what he catered to in high school. It’s even harder when there are a few Machiavellians that keep trying to cut him down whenever he makes a speech, trying to make him look worse than the competition.

That project Mark was working on in Miami, one he’s calling Course Match, is just about finished too. He’s busy getting the servers and making sure they’re running so that the site won’t crash before the Add deadline. It’s a pretty ingenious idea.

By mid-September, once things have winded down for the both of them, Eduardo’s more comfortable with Mark than he’s ever been with anyone. He’d thought the same thing last year, sure, but it’s different now. They haven’t had actual sex yet but Eduardo’s pretty sure he’s got Mark down to a T. He spends way too much time studying him not to.

Somewhere along the way, though, Eduardo misses a step. Something keeps him from noticing one very important detail: Somehow, in the midst of everything, Mark has managed to find a girlfriend.

\- - -

He finds out about Erica on the first Friday night in October, four days after he’d last seen Mark.

As soon as Mark’s through the door, Eduardo pulls him by the front of his hoodie onto the bed, wasting no time in starting this night off on the right foot. Mark actually laughs into Eduardo’s mouth as he kneels between Eduardo’s knees and Eduardo can’t believe he’s gone without this all week. Granted, the hiatus is his entire fault, the first round of tests catching him by surprise and causing him to live through endless cram sessions in order to get through all the reading he’d been pushing aside. But he’s missed Mark all the same. After a month of near-constant togetherness, it’s hard to spend a few days apart.

“You did well on your tests, then,” Mark breaks away to say, that sly smirk quirking his lips as he nudges Eduardo’s cheek with his nose and rolls off to the side.

“Well, yeah, I hope so.” Frowning, Eduardo props himself up on one elbow and looks down at Mark, who’s got bruised lips and flushed cheeks. That might be a sheen of sweat at his hairline if the light isn’t playing tricks on Eduardo’s eyes. “Why’d you stop?”

Mark shrugs and casts his glance away from Eduardo, shakes his head.

This can’t be good, he thinks. Nothing good ever follows aversion. When he asks, “What is it?” he swears to himself that it’s not because he’s a masochist; he’s just concerned.

A long ten seconds pass before Mark finally looks Eduardo in the eye again, steady as always, like he’s got Eduardo cornered instead of being cornered by Eduardo. He says, “I’ve been seeing a girl,” and yeah, ok, now Eduardo can see why Mark’s gaze is so unwavering. “I met her last week at the bar.”

Blinking, Eduardo shifts around until he’s sitting Indian style on the bed, ankles crossed over each other, fingers curled tightly around the knobs of his knees. He takes a deep breath that whistles through his teeth and tells himself that _no_ , Mark has not been cheating on him. “And you decided now would be a good time to tell me?” he asks calmly, refusing to look at Mark because he still looks disheveled and Eduardo obviously did that to him. But Mark tasted like beer and cherry lip balm and Eduardo knows for a fact that Mark doesn’t care about lip moisturizers.

“I was going to tell you last weekend but you said you had tests to study for and I didn’t want to get in the way.”

Hissing, “Oh, yeah, that’s rich. Choose now to be considerate,” Eduardo looks up and glares at Mark, who’s sitting up now too, brow drawn, lips pursed.

“Fuck you, Wardo, at least I told you.”

“Yeah, you get so many brownie points for _that_ , Mark.” Eduardo rolls his eyes and stands up. For all he wanted to be close to Mark tonight, he doesn’t even want to be near him anymore. This ridiculous sense of betrayal is wedging itself into his chest, making it kind of hard to breathe, and sitting next to Mark is just making it worse. He grabs the back of his desk chair to steady himself and draws another deep breath.

Mark huffs somewhere behind him, “We’re not together, you know.”

It’s possible Mark could be referring to his new girlfriend but Eduardo knows way better than that. Mark wouldn’t have brought her up if he weren’t actively dating her and he wouldn’t have said what he just said if he thought he and Eduardo were in any kind of relationship. Clearly, he sees being with Eduardo as nothing more than a way to blow off steam and, well, that’s just _great_. “I’m aware of that, Mark,” he says sharply, talking to the desk because looking over his shoulder would mean watching Mark’s reaction. He wouldn’t be able to stomach it.

“Then why are you reacting like that? It shouldn’t matter so much.”

He mumbles to himself, “Of course it doesn’t matter to you,” and then turns around. “Whatever, ok? If it doesn’t matter then it’s ok you have a girlfr –”

“I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“You clearly do. But, hey, it’s ok because it doesn’t matter and we don’t have to keep up this – this _whatever_ that we are.”

“Wardo, I didn’t mean –”

“I’m not helping you cheat on this girl, Mark,” Eduardo says exasperatedly, throwing his hands up like he does when he talks to his father. Things can change way too quickly in five minutes.

“Her name is Erica.”

“That’s just great. Fucking fantastic.” Shaking his head, Eduardo goes to his door and tries to yank it open, not remembering he’d locked it. When it’s successfully unlocked, he holds the door open for Mark and gestures extravagantly for him to leave.

Mark looks at him like he’s grown two heads but gets up anyway. “You’re being unreasonable,” is the last thing he says and then Eduardo slams the door.

He goes to bed that night thinking not of Mark betraying him but of how similar his name is to Erica’s.

\- - -

Because he feels like a jerk (and because he’s a much better friend to Mark than Mark will probably ever be to him), Eduardo goes to Kirkland the next afternoon and tells Mark he’s happy for him.

“What?” Mark looks surprised with the end of a dart in his mouth shaking up and down.

Eduardo actually laughs because he can’t ever stay mad at Mark for long. He’s too unintentionally funny. “I just –” Shrugging, Eduardo sits on the edge of Mark’s still unmade bed (he remembers Mark saying _I will never make my bed on weekends, Wardo, deal with it_ when they first got back). “I acted immaturely. You deserve to have someone who will make you happy.”

It doesn’t seem like Mark understands that logic; the crease between his eyebrows tells Eduardo as much. “Ok,” he says slowly, swiveling around in his chair and then turning back to his computer after a moment’s consideration of Eduardo’s face. “Thanks, I guess.”

Eduardo nods down at the bed, sighs quietly when he realizes he won’t be sleeping in those sheets for a while, and then forces himself to brush it off. There’s no reason for this to hurt.

\- - -

But after a week, Eduardo meets Erica and it hurts a hell of a whole lot more than he’d expected it to. It’s because Mark’s actually _smiling_ and taking her hand and getting her a new beer and being his usual self but in a less caustic way. They – including Chris and Dustin – are all sitting in the common room, alternating between movies and Nintendo and beer pong, and Eduardo really shouldn’t feel alone but he does.

Just the way Mark looks at Erica, like he’s surprised that he’s happy to have her around, ties Eduardo’s stomach into knots. He doesn’t think Mark’s _ever_ looked at him like that– but, then, he and Mark were never together and it shouldn’t matter.

It does, though. It matters to Eduardo very much and as much as he hates to admit it, he doesn’t want Erica to last long. He wants her to figure out how much of an asshole Mark can be and then kick him onto the curb. He wants her to see Mark when he’s too busy with his computer to spare her a moment of his precious time. He wants her to see the real Mark, the one who judges people before properly meeting them, and he wants her to hear Mark when he’s on one of his spiels about his classmates so that she can see that he’s not nearly as charming as she thinks.

He wants her to know that Mark’s willing to do things with guys because she doesn’t seem like the type of girl who’d like to date someone who’s also been with the opposite sex.

Then he feels bad about thinking all of those things because Mark doesn’t deserve that, not in the slightest. Eduardo doesn’t really even believe that Mark’s a bad guy. Everyone has their moments when they’re less than saintly and Mark’s just like everyone else. Only thing is that Mark’s a little cocky about his intelligence – but so what? Anyone who made a perfect score on his SAT has the right to brag a little. And it’s not like Mark’s never done anything to show his brilliance; Course Match is just one of many examples.

What makes it worse is that Mark can actually be really sweet. Maybe not so much with words but his actions speak volumes. He’s being sweet now, attending to Erica just like a good boyfriend should, and he’s been sweet with Eduardo too, drooling on his chest and ending phone conversations with goodbyes and not clicks.

It’s only fair that Eduardo give Erica a chance because she’s so nice and pretty and not at all as incompetent as he’d maybe hoped for her to be. And she likes Mark too, which is probably a first for any girl in Boston and definitely a plus.

The only thing he resents her for is taking Mark from him – and not in the sense that she’s sleeping with him (there’s no mistaking the signs of sex, even with Mark) but just that she’s using up all his free time. Eduardo used to be able to come into Mark’s room and do homework while he typed on his computer, the steady click of keys on the keyboard a welcome background noise. Now, Mark’s barely ever in his room whenever Eduardo wants to come over. He’s either avoiding him, which is pretty unlikely, or he’s really always at Erica’s dorm like Dustin and Chris say.

It turns out he can’t concentrate very well without some kind of similar background noise, so he takes to camping out in Widener near the reference desk where the librarian is always clicking or typing away, hard at work on something research-related like any good Harvard employee. It’s soothing in the way that Mark’s absence isn’t. Because, for as much as Eduardo tries not to feel abandoned, there’s a gaping, Mark-sized hole in his life that he can’t fill with anything and he’s just trying to figure out what things were like before he and Mark ever decided it was a good idea to start kissing each other and getting off together. (Not that he’s complaining about that side of their friendship; he just misses it too much.)

When Mark is in his room at the same time as Eduardo, he’s either too busy with school or updating Course Match to pay him much mind or he’s brought over Erica. There’s never enough time for Eduardo and Mark to just talk or work like they used to and that’s like a sucker punch to the gut. It’s what he misses most of all, just being in Mark’s presence.

Almost all of October passes without Eduardo and Mark ever being alone in the same room together.

\- - -

At the end of the month, Eduardo slips into his desk chair around two in the morning after a really long study group session and an Investment Society mixer and finds in his email that Mark has updated his blog, something he hasn’t done since the previous school year had ended. (No, Eduardo did not start tracking Mark’s blog over the summer to see what he was up to, that’s ridiculous.)

He drops his jaw when he reads the first line of Mark’s entry and it’s silly, yeah, but he really is legitimately surprised. He’d thought Mark and Erica were getting along fine, that Mark had actually found someone he could tolerate long enough to keep around for a few months, at least, maybe even a few years. She had to be something if she was replacing Eduardo, right?

But now he’s reading “Erica Albright is a bitch” over and over, like it’s the only line on the page, and thinking, kind of regretfully, _maybe this is my chance to get it right_. He shouldn’t be happy about the breakup, especially not if Mark’s very clearly devastated about it, but this is what he’s waited for all month, really. He misses Mark, he really does, and if a breakup is the only thing that will bring him back into Eduardo’s life, in whatever capacity, then he’s going to be selfishly happy that it’s finally happened.

He doesn’t read anything else in the email, just shuts off his laptop, grabs his jacket and leaves.

The sooner he can get back in, the better.

\- - -

And so it turns out that Mark doesn’t want anything from Eduardo but his algorithm to rank chess players so he can finish a stupid site that’s pretty much hotornot.com with female Harvard undergrads and without the ads. He feels bad condoning the site’s launch, providing the last ingredient, but it’s still _Mark_ , his best friend, and Eduardo helps him so constantly it’s like a hobby.

He’ll pretty much do anything just to have Mark’s company again, even if all he ends up doing is watching Mark watch the site’s traffic. He’s kind of pathetic like that but that’s just what Mark does to him.

\- - -

At four, the network crashes and Eduardo jumps up from Mark’s bed to start pacing around nervously, pulling his hands through his hair. Mark’s nonchalant about the whole thing but Eduardo can’t just pretend nothing’s wrong.

“Don’t you know you’re going to face some serious consequences?” He’s stopped moving for the moment, just so he can spin Mark’s chair around and get him to look at him straight in the eye. “You can get _expelled_ , Mark!”

Mark rolls his eyes and shrugs off Eduardo’s hand. “For what? Making a site that’s too popular?” He scoffs. “I’m pretty sure this type of thing has happened before. They won’t expel me for misjudging the amount of server space I needed.”

“Not for the fucking crash, Mark!” Groaning, Eduardo takes a few steps back and holds up his hands. “You stole from Harvard. Don’t you see that?”

“I didn’t _steal_ from Ha–”

“Mark, the pictures!” He gestures wildly at the blackened computer screen. “Those don’t belong to you!”

That seems to hit Mark, at least, which is more than Eduardo could ever have wished for. This _oh shit_ expression takes over his face, turning his smug, self-satisfied smirk into a frown and screwing his eyebrows into one long, down-pointed line of hair. It kind of just makes him look angry, really, but at least there’s some remorse there, more than there was when he thought the only thing he’d done wrong was cause the network to crash.

Just when Eduardo starts to feel bad for him, though, Mark’s face goes blank again and he says, “I didn’t make any money off running the pictures, Wardo.”

Eduardo huffs, cheeks puffing out and everything. He doesn’t kick Mark because someone up there is looking out for Mark’s wellbeing and makes Eduardo kick the base of the wall instead. Dustin and Chris, who up until now were discussing something secretively on the couch, both give Eduardo a look that screams _you’re a dumb fuck and now you’re going to need ice for a broken toe_. Eduardo glares at them, points at his foot and says, “Didn’t break it, guys, thank you,” then turns back to Mark and points at him instead.

“You still used them without permission. People sue for that kind of shit all the time.”

“Look, if it’s copyright law we’re getting into –”

“No, Mark, look.” Eduardo crosses the space between them and bends down to Mark’s level, hands gripping his shoulders so that he can somehow get him to pay attention. Mark’s not looking at him directly but he’s not exactly ignoring him either, at least. “You _hacked_ Harvard’s network. You stripped it of its images and you redistributed them. It’s not just copyright – it’s security we’re dealing with.”

“ _We’re_ not dealing with anything, Eduardo –”

“For God’s sake!” Groaning, Eduardo pushes Mark back and stands up straight again. When he starts pulling his hair again, he tries not to think about what he’ll look like by the end of his Harvard career if he ends up having to deal with Mark’s stupidity the rest of the time and focuses instead on how he can make Mark see that he’s _wrong_. “You’re going to get investigated, Mark. You’re going to need to work on a story so that they won’t expel you and you’re going to have to apologize.”

Mark scowls at him. “I don’t think I’ll have to apologize to anyone.”

“Yeah? And why’s that?”

“Well, it’s pretty obvious I’ve pointed out some gaping holes in their system.”

Eyebrows raised, Eduardo tilts his head to the side and looks at Mark. Maybe if he stares long enough, Mark’s logic will transfer itself into Eduardo’s mind and stop giving him such a headache. “I . . . What?”

“If it was that easy to hack into the facebooks, how easy must it be to hack into our own personal accounts? People complain about identity theft all the time but not even at Harvard is there a secure enough system to protect its students and faculty. At least I didn’t do this with the intent to ruin anyone.” (Eduardo rolls his eyes at that, mutters _oh please_ and sits on the edge of Mark’s bed.) “Wardo, that could be the story.”

He shakes his head. “You blogged the entire time, Mark. They know why you did all of this and how you did it.”

“Right, but they can’t deny that what I did proves how flawed their system is. If they expel me for this, it’ll only look bad on them.”

Sighing, Eduardo scratches the back of his head and closes his eyes. More of this is making sense than he had expected. “All right, fine. You’re still going to face some serious consequences, Mark.”

Mark flashes him the quickest of smiles and shrugs. “It was worth it.”

\- - -

Maybe six months of probation really is worth all the attention Mark gets after Face Mash but Eduardo doesn’t really see it. Mark tries to get him to understand, tells him that before Face Mash, people didn’t know who he was. Course Match didn’t exactly get him the attention he’d wanted, not really; it was covered somewhat thoroughly maybe once in _The Crimson_ and then shoved to the back of the paper for less than two hundred word follow-ups.

But Face Mash actually made Mark the center of attention – and that’s exactly what he’d wanted.

“We were talking about the Final Clubs before, remember?”

Eduardo rolls his head along the back of the couch so he can look at Mark, who’s got his feet kicked up on the coffee table and his eyes trained on the TV. It’s like he’s talking to no one. “What?”

“Final Clubs. Face Mash. Keep up.”

He sighs and pushes himself into a straighter position so that he’s barely leaning back anymore. “What, you think the Porc will notice you for invading people’s privacy?”

Mark looks over at him and narrows his eyes. “I didn’t invade anyone’s privacy.”

“Right, sure. So you think making a name for yourself by pretty much insulting the entire female undergrad population will endear you to a Final Club?”

He nods. “I don’t see why not.”

Eduardo grabs the nearest pillow and chucks it at Mark’s face. He would’ve kissed him if they had talked about their – their _fling_ or whatever but Mark’s been avoiding relationship talk of any sort since the night Erica broke up with him. So all he _can_ do is say, “Shut up and watch the movie,” and turn back to the TV so that he won’t start fantasizing.

\- - -

The night Eduardo learns he’s been punched by the Phoenix S.K. Club doesn’t start out on a very exciting note but after a few cups of spiked punch at AEPi’s Caribbean Night, things get way more interesting.

Maybe Mark does belittle Eduardo’s good news with the whole _it’s just a diversity thing_ and maybe Mark does drag an underdressed Eduardo into the cold to tell him about his new project, but at least he doesn’t step all over him and tell him he doesn’t deserve it. It’s the only good thing Eduardo can pull out of the conversation to keep himself from getting too upset about Mark’s lack of congratulations.

Oh, yeah, and there’s also the very important fact that he’s about to become the CFO of a website, which – Well, if anything’s going to make his father proud and make him stop thinking of Eduardo as an incompetent fool, it’s being the business head of a company. Since not even making three hundred thousand dollars over the summer was enough to please him, this one thousand dollar investment has to take the cake.

He would’ve appreciated some support from Mark, though. A simple _yeah, that’s good_ would’ve been better than the _you got punched by the Phoenix_ line he got, especially since Mark had sounded as unpleasantly surprised as he ever allows himself to sound. But with Mark, Eduardo always has to take whatever he can get. It’s never easy to push for more.

Three cups of punch later, something gets it into Eduardo’s head that he can at least _try_ to get more from Mark. There’s really nothing stopping him from asking Mark why he wasn’t excited for him. Or why he doesn’t want to talk about Erica. Or why he hasn’t tried to kiss Eduardo any of the numerous times Eduardo made it plenty obvious that it’s what he wants.

He can’t just keep waiting for Mark. He’d probably end up waiting forever.

So he leaves Dustin and Chris talking to the Asian girls who’d been eyeing them earlier and makes the fastest trek he can manage to Kirkland without running into anything or tripping over himself. Mark’s door is unlocked and Eduardo can see Mark hunched over his desk from the entrance. He doesn’t even look up when Eduardo makes a big deal of locking the door.

“Mark?” he tries, unwinding his scarf and dumping it on top of the couch.

Mark just grunts, but it’s more than Eduardo expected.

“Can I ask you something?” He sets his coat over his scarf and walks further into the suite. His fingertips are tingling, his legs are shaking and he’s pretty sure it’s not because he just walked across campus in twenty degree weather not wearing long pants. He’s pretty sure it has something to do with nerves and his anticipation of how Mark will react to what he’s about to say.

Mark still hasn’t looked up. He does say, “What is it?” though.

That’s more than enough to push Eduardo all the way into Mark’s room and apparently enough to get him to close Mark’s door, which surprises him because he hadn’t planned this on his walk at all. Then Mark turns his face up and Eduardo can’t stop himself from surging forward and kissing him. He curls his fingers around Mark’s skull and crushes their mouths together, harder and more fervent than he would’ve liked their first kiss in a month and a half to be.

It’s all good, though. A lot better than nothing. Mark’s obviously caught off guard and Eduardo’s maybe the tiniest bit intoxicated (it’s not like the punch was spiked really well) but the kiss is better than anything he could have imagined. He slips his tongue along Mark’s bottom lip, sinks his teeth down into the tender flesh. Mark’s hands come up to grab Eduardo’s waist and they somehow end up rolling backward in the chair without falling all over each other on the floor.

Eduardo’s straddling Mark, tearing his hands through Mark’s hair, pressing himself as close as he can get. The front of his pants rubs against Mark’s stomach and they groan into each other’s mouths, Mark eventually pulling away and muttering, “Get this off,” as his fingers stumble over the buttons of Eduardo’s Hawaiian print shirt.

Clearly Eduardo has been wrong all along.

He thinks about how much time they wasted, how many circles they ran around each other trying not to step on any toes, and it makes him dizzy. Because here he is, getting undressed with Mark in mid-November, and he could’ve probably been naked hours ago if they hadn’t both been so oblivious to each other. After this summer, he’d thought they’d gotten over missing each other’s cues but it’s painfully apparent how wrong he was.

Now he and Mark are stumbling over to Mark’s bed, stripped down to their boxers, and Eduardo’s heart is pounding so fast and so hard that he’s pretty sure Mark can hear it. It feels like it’s about to fall out of his chest.

“Wardo, for fuck’s sake,” Mark groans when Eduardo puts his knee between Mark’s legs and presses it up to his crotch. He rolls his forehead over Mark’s collarbone and pants onto his neck. Goose bumps rise on Mark’s skin as he trails his fingers up the inside of Mark’s arm. “Fuck.”

Smiling, he slips his hand between their bodies, arching up so there’s more space, and wastes no time in taking Mark’s cock in his hand. The hard, familiar weight of it makes Eduardo’s head spin. He missed this, missed having Mark at his mercy, but most of all missed being able to touch. For him, there’s never been anything like this. There’s never been anything like feeling Mark breathing under him, his chest expanding, his stomach rising. There’s never been anything like Mark whispering Eduardo’s name, chanting it when things get to be too much.

Eduardo wants this, all of it, so much that it hurts. And now that he has it back, he wants nothing more than to get everything else.

So when he gets Mark to the point where he’s thrusting into Eduardo’s palm, scratching one hand down Eduardo’s back, Eduardo leans in close. He kisses him and tugs his bottom lip out with his teeth and then whispers into Mark’s ear, his eyes screwed tightly shut, “I want to fuck you.”

Mark actually stills and yanks his head away. Eduardo can feel him trembling and he doesn’t let go. “You want to – like actually have – with me?” he pants brokenly, making almost no sense.

Eduardo knows him well enough, though, and he can fill in the blanks and extract the underlying fear in his words. _God_ , he feels so helpless, watching Mark’s face redden and his eyes dart around so they won’t stop on Eduardo’s. There is no way Eduardo could ever get out of this thing he has with Mark without feeling something very deeply for him.

Whispering, “Yes, I do,” he nods and kisses Mark, eyes open so he can see how Mark reacts to him. It’s like a flash went off in his eyes or something, he’s blinking so fast – and it’s then that Eduardo notices, right before he starts kissing back, that Mark’s eyes are red.

\- - -

After that night, they have sex a lot.

Neither of them has ever been with a guy before so it’s interesting. They have to figure out what their best position is and what lube doesn’t make Mark’s hands dry out. They have to find which condoms don’t break easily and if it hurts to push too fast. They get drunk one night and Eduardo’s fingering Mark while they’re making out on the couch when he discovers that if he starts with two fingers, it’s actually easier to open Mark up.

They’re learning on the fly and it couldn’t be better.

Mark’s work on the Winklevoss’ dating site and his own site gets in the way sometimes, sure, and so does Eduardo’s school work and Phoenix parties, but they make it work. Mark’s especially hard to pull away from the computer after one of the Phoenix activities but the point is _they’re working_. There’s no more of that missing cues thing or that hesitance thing.

It’s just them and they’re having fun and there are no labels and Eduardo couldn’t ask for anything more.

\- - -

The Phoenix accepts Eduardo late in the first semester and Mark doesn’t really say anything about it.

Even as Eduardo explains the new tie he’s going to get – all black, little white birds dotting it – Mark’s not paying attention. He’s just typing, fingers tapping the keyboard smoothly, without a single moment of hesitation. There’s nothing Eduardo can say to break Mark out of his godforsaken routine – and he’s tried all the tricks he’s learned recently.

“Do you even care?” Eduardo asks pointlessly, setting a half-finished beer on Mark’s nightstand and gathering his things. The whole minute he spends packing his backpack, the only response he gets is a more rapid patter of keys. He doesn’t need any more signs from Mark telling him he doesn’t care.

Muttering, “I’ll take that as a ‘no’,” he brushes past Mark’s desk and walks quickly out of the room, head bowed as he ducks out of the suite and out of the way of a confused Dustin. His feet can’t carry him fast enough back to Eliot in the snow.

It’s stupid. They don’t talk to each other for days.

\- - -

Mark shows up with a small box the following week, looking kind of harried with his already unruly hair resembling more of an afro than the curly mob it’s supposed to be. Eduardo’s just arrived from being sworn in and he’s not sure what to do.

“I know I was a jerk about you getting into the Phoenix but I didn’t really mean it. At first, I didn’t want to admit that you were better than me and that you were more desirable to Final Clubs than I was. But then I thought about it and I figured they could use someone like you and I’d just probably bring them down.”

Blinking, Eduardo steps to the side to let Mark in and crosses his arms across his chest. He’s never heard Mark be so self-deprecating before.

Mark fidgets with the box and looks everywhere but at Eduardo’s face. “I wasn’t jealous. I just didn’t think you deserved it.”

Eduardo scoffs. “Is that why you’re here now? You wanted to tell me this so you could feel better about yourself? Or was that other thing just a backhanded compliment?”

“No.” Mark finally looks in Eduardo’s eyes and Eduardo sees the panic that briefly flickers in Mark’s. “Past tense, Wardo, I don’t think that anymore.”

“Then what do you think?”

Shrugging, Mark shoves the box into Eduardo’s hands, says, “Congratulations,” to the floor and backs away. He doesn’t leave.

Small as it is, the box weighs kind of heavily in Eduardo’s palms, like maybe it’s a watch or something, or a rock, since Mark has the sensitive capabilities of one and would think giving one would remind Eduardo of him the most. Or something equally stupid. He doesn’t open it; it just sits in his hands as he stares at Mark intently, trying to figure this out.

It’s not like Mark to backtrack on something like this. It’s not easy for him to admit mistakes and try to make things right like any other normal person. Mark’s problem-solving skills are either really eccentric or nonexistent and, from past experience, Eduardo would say Mark doesn’t know how to fix anything that isn’t on a computer screen.

But here he is, actually trying, unknowingly breaking Eduardo’s stupidly fragile heart all over again, and Eduardo wants to forgive him so badly because fighting with Mark is a losing battle. Somehow, they’ll end up back in each other’s good graces and it’ll be like nothing ever happened.

He bites his lip for a few seconds and then asks, clearing his throat, “What is this?”

Mark doesn’t want to look up, Eduardo can tell from the set of his shoulders, so Eduardo puts his free hand under his chin and tips his face up. Mark’s Adam’s apple bobs against his knuckles. “A watch.”

Eduardo’s chest tightens and he drops his arm to his side. “Why would you get me a watch?”

Mark shrugs at him again then shakes his head, thinking better of it. “Yours is old.”

“I like my – well, yeah, it’s really old.”

“Are you going to open it?”

Eduardo considers that for a moment. If he doesn’t open it now, he can insist later that Mark take it back. It’s not necessary for him to bribe Eduardo with gifts just so he’ll forgive him. All he ever needs is genuine remorse and Mark’s given him that already, just by being fidgety.

“Later,” he decides, smirking. Right now, he needs to feel Mark writhing beneath him, needs to see him tossing his head back and forth, needs to hear him whimpering Eduardo’s name like he would whisper God’s name in prayer. He needs to watch him lose his unclenching grip on control and give into pleasure because it’s been _so long_ and he wants Mark to enjoy this so badly.

After setting the gift on his desk, Eduardo yanks Mark to him, hands fisted in the front of Mark’s sweater on each side of the GAP emblem. Their mouths mold and their teeth click together. Eduardo’s rough in all ways, wanting to keep Mark here, even if it’s just for the night.

\- - -

A month after winter break, Thefacebook finally goes live. He and Mark send emails to fifty different people and sit in front of the computer for an hour, drinking beer, watching the hits come. He has to nudge Mark awake a few times because he starts losing his train of thought in the middle of their conversation. Eventually, he gives up and lets Mark drool on his shoulder. Eduardo tips his head back against the wall and strokes Mark’s hair, fighting off sleep until he can’t do it anymore, regardless of it still being early in the night.

He wakes up to Dustin shaking his leg and Chris snapping his fingers in front of Mark’s face. Even when he’s groggy he can tell their tag-teaming technique is some kind of ploy to get them to do something stupid. That notion is reinforced when he notices how strong Dustin’s breath smells of alcohol and if Chris is helping him, he must be drunk too.

Groaning, “Stop fucking touching me,” he kicks at Dustin and turns his nose into Mark’s hair. Mark’s still blissfully unaware that two monkeys are trying to wake them up.

“Aww, lookit that, Chrissy!” Dustin gushes. One of them starts clapping. “Ain’t it jus’ so _sweet_?”

“You fuckin’ tease, Wardo,” Chris starts, and Eduardo looks at him because he really sounds like he’s on the verge of tears. Which doesn’t make any sense at all. “You _said_ you weren’t _gay_!”

That makes Dustin start laughing obnoxiously but Eduardo doesn’t get it. It just makes him confused. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“You fuckin’ – you fuckin’ _owe_ me.” Chris points at him and his hand’s wavering. “You owe me _big time_ , Wardo.”

“For what?”

Dustin jumps in with, “You’re so fucking Mark, aren’t you?”

Eduardo widens his eyes and blushes. “No, what – no, that’s just –”

“Aha, I knew it!” Laughing again, Dustin starts jumping around, twirling in a circle, and he eventually drags Chris with him, who doesn’t look happy at all. Eduardo would get him to the bathroom because he actually looks like he’s about to throw up but he doesn’t want to leave Mark’s side. That his arm is numb and his butt hurts is no matter; he’s too warm to give this up.

Dustin’s stupid dance eventually leads them out of the room. They’re considerate enough to close the door.

Mark grunts into Eduardo’s neck, “Thank God,” and Eduardo laughs. He didn’t even notice Mark waking up.

“They’re idiots,” he says, kissing the top of Mark’s head.

Yawning, “Yeah,” Mark sits up straight, freeing Eduardo’s side, and then just rolls over so he’s lying down instead. Eduardo follows suit, assuming that if he doesn’t sleep spooned up behind Mark tonight, he won’t get any sleep at all.

He doesn’t even feel embarrassed thinking that – or thinking, right before he falls asleep again, that he could probably live with this forever.

\- - -

All the attention Mark got for Face Mash can probably be multiplied by one thousand and still not compare to the amount of attention he gets for Thefacebook. For a week, Eduardo watches him field phone calls and reply to emails, all of them asking for interviews or a single quote. If Harvard had a Most Wanted list, Mark would be on the top, listed next to a million dollar reward, he’s in _that_ high demand.

Eduardo doesn’t mind it at all. He’s actually quite proud of Mark for finishing this huge project in a few weeks and launching it to such an extravagant amount of success. It’s not like he’s deprived of Mark just because a horde of people demands his attention.

What he does mind, though, is that his name is never mentioned. All the articles in _The Crimson_ talk only about “sophomore founder of Thefacebook Mark Zuckerberg” without any reference to Eduardo or his help in getting Thefacebook off the ground. Sure, he didn’t do any coding for the site but he did do its errands. He was the one writing checks for more servers and making sure Mark didn’t die from malnutrition or lack of sleep. Thefacebook wouldn’t exist in this form if Eduardo hadn’t kept its creator alive or agreed to fund it.

So, yes, it bothers him that Mark always ignores his role in the site’s development when he gives interviews. But he tries not to dwell on it. His name’s on the masthead, at least, and that’s all he needs to show his father that he can be successful.

And Mark knows Eduardo’s important to Thefacebook. He thanks him once, too, when he’s half-asleep on Eduardo’s chest. He mumbles something unintelligible and then, clear as a whistle, “Thanks, Wardo.” There’s no telling for sure if he says it because Eduardo pulls a blanket over them or if it’s because he understands the concerns Eduardo had aired not even ten minutes ago, but Eduardo likes to think it’s the second reason.

Since only a few people know about Eduardo’s involvement, he’s not surprised when, at the Bill Gates lecture, the two girls who introduce themselves have no idea who he is. He takes it in stride, though. Eduardo’s always been good at that.

The long-haired brunette who’s clearly the most outspoken of the pair – Asian, just like all the other girls Eduardo has ever dated for an appreciable amount of time while at Harvard – asks him, as soon as her stupidly annoying giggles die down, “Your friend – is that Mark Zuckerberg?”

Eduardo blinks at them. He can’t really understand why they had to do so much laughing to get his attention. Was it really not easy enough to lean over and tap on his shoulder? “Uh, yes,” he says after a beat, trying really hard not to sound annoyed.

“He made Thefacebook,” she whispers back. It’s not a question as much as it is a very slightly uncertain statement.

And Eduardo had thought the attention wasn’t a big deal but now that he’s faced with it, he can’t fight a smile. They’ve done something _awesome_ and, well, maybe this is the “not expendable” thing Mark had talked to Eduardo’s father about his first night in Miami. Maybe Thefacebook is what Mark’s always wanted to accomplish.

He bites his lip and then says, voice still low but a little bit shaky, “Yeah. I mean, it’s both of ours. But, yeah, we – yes.”

“Cool.” The girl tosses her hair, leaning forward a little more so that her red bra is even less covered by her white shirt, and points at her friend. “I’m Christy. This is Alice.”

Murmuring, “Very nice to meet you,” he shifts around in his chair and briefly catches the eyes of two people who are pointing at and obviously talking about him and Mark – or, really, Mark. But the fact still stands: The recognition Thefacebook has given them is almost unbearably surreal. His heart maybe skips a beat thinking about what this could mean for his future.

“Facebook me when you get home. Maybe we can all go out and grab a drink later.”

It’s really hard for Eduardo to stop his eyes going all buggishly wide at that. He’s not even sure how he manages to say, “Certainly. Absolutely, I will do that,” without stammering or blushing or dropping dead.

This is just way too much.

Facebook me.

Jesus fucking Christ.

\- - -

They do a lot more than go out for drinks that night.

After he and Mark argue about monetizing the site (after all, a “not expendable” site needs money to run and he can’t keep paying for the servers himself) and responding to the Winklevoss’ cease and desist letter, they meet Alice and Christy and both end up being sucked off in the bathroom in adjacent stalls. Eduardo’s pretty sure he comes thinking about Mark on the other side of the wall and not about Christy’s hot mouth on his dick (she uses a little bit too much teeth anyway, and although seeing all that cleavage was cool in the beginning, he’s never been charmed by showy girls).

Then all four of them go back to Kirkland because Mark decides, after running into Erica at the restaurant, that the next step with Thefacebook is to expand – right now, tonight. There’s no time, he tells Eduardo on their way out the door, to walk the girls back to their dorms because this has to be done now, before he loses all the codes that are in his head or whatever. Eduardo can’t do anything but agree and turns to Christy to tell them they have to go but she latches on, insisting they can join them.

And that’s how, after hours of brainstorming with Chris and Dustin ways on how exactly to expand and get the word out on campuses that are hundreds of miles away with a limited budget, Eduardo’s faced with a sleepy, clingy Christy and a very sober and awake Alice. He’s not even sure why they’re still here. It’s three o’clock in the morning; they should be tucked into their own beds, not in a partial stranger’s suite.

“Eduardo, I had so much fun,” Christy gushes, shaking off Alice’s hand on her shoulder and wrapping her arm around Eduardo’s neck.

Eduardo pulls his head back and raises his eyebrows, keeps his arms at his sides. “You did?”

“Yeah, hearing you guys talk about all that stuff was fascinating. I think getting Stanford really isn’t going to be as difficult as you think. Californians are easy to win over.”

Chuckling, “Right, yeah, you’re probably right,” he finally reaches his hand back to get Christy’s arm off him. Before he can move it, she laces their fingers together and kisses him on the mouth. It’s like when she kissed him in the bathroom, hot and full of tongue, just not as long because Eduardo breaks it. He doesn’t want Mark, who’s in his room, to see that or Alice, who’s waiting by the door with a stern look on her face, to witness it for too long. “You should go get some sleep, Christy.”

She smiles at him, finally letting go, and nods. “Yeah, I should. But, hey, we should go out to dinner soon, ok?”

“Um . . .” He blinks at her, because this is definitely _not_ what he wanted to get into. He’d just wanted to go out and have fun; he’d never intended for this night to lead to a possible relationship. He has Mark, after all, and he’s more than enough, way, way more than enough.

And, _God_ , Mark’s in the other room, probably listening to this whole conversation because, even though he makes a big deal about being wired in, he’s always aware of what’s going on around him.

But Eduardo still says, “Sure, yes, that would be nice,” as if nothing he’s just realized matters at all. Then Christy’s gone and he sits on Mark’s couch, trying to figure out how to get himself out of this mess.

\- - -

In the end, there’s no mess to clean up. Eduardo tells Mark about Christy the night before he goes on his second date with her and Mark doesn’t even pretend to care. He stares at his computer, falters maybe the tiniest bit with his keyboard, and says, “Yeah.”

 _Yeah_ and that’s it. Eduardo gave him a long explanation on how he couldn’t get out of the date because Christy’s manipulative and all Mark says is _yeah_. He’s not even looking at him when he says it. He’s just typing into that stupid black box on his screen, like Eduardo only deserves the least amount of his attention.

If Eduardo weren’t so crazy about him, if he weren’t so invested in keeping Mark happy, he’d take Mark’s computer and smash it into pieces.

He’s more level-headed than that, though. It’s easier to be passive-aggressive and say, “Ok, fine. I guess that’s it, then,” and then walk out of Mark’s suite without looking back to see if Mark’s stopped coding yet.

He goes out with Christy, too, and that’s actually not as bad as he’d thought it would be. She makes it pretty obvious that she wants a boyfriend and that, in particular, she wants Eduardo to be her boyfriend, but he figures there could be worse things. Things like being in an almost purely physical relationship with your best friend. Things like caring for someone who doesn’t seem to care enough.

Christy’s not a monster. She’s sweet and she’s smart and when she drinks a little too much, her sentences are like ten-car pileups, words mounting on top of words until it sounds like one long word. Eduardo really enjoys holding her hand and kissing her in front of the steps of Littauer before his Immigration Economics class and taking her to his Phoenix parties.

And after the first time they have sex, Christy doesn’t get up to check on her email or make some excuse to get out of bed. Instead, she licks the sweat off Eduardo’s upper lip and kisses him long and slow, helping him breathe. Her hands mold around his shoulders, massaging, and she rubs the back of his calves with the heels of her feet. He feels so taken care of, so reassured. He hadn’t realized this was what he was missing in not having an actual significant other. He doesn’t want to think about how things may have been if he had just asked Mark to be his boyfriend before winter break like he’d really wanted to. He really doesn’t because it hurts to know that he could have probably had it all if he hadn’t been so worried about how Mark would react. It couldn’t have hurt to try and –

Shit. Now he’s in bed with Christy, thinking about Mark after making a very conscious effort earlier not to do such a thing, and he feels terrible about it. It’s not fair to Christy for his mind to be anywhere else but here, with her, where’s she putting so much work into making him feel good.

“Eduardo?” she whispers in his ear, carding one of her hands through his hair and scratching his scalp.

He sighs as quietly as he can but it’s a sound magnified by one thousand and is about as loud as any normal exhalation. “Yeah, I’m sorry,” he says, licking his lips and rolling off her. He’s not a big person but he’s pretty sure it can’t be comfortable to be underneath him for so much time. “I’m sorry, I was just thinking.”

She gives him this tiny smile that makes him feel a little better. Quietly, she says, “Stop thinking,” and settles against his side, nuzzling into his chest and tightening her arm around his waist. She’s so small next to him, so much more fragile than he’s used to (not that Christy’s fragile or anything).

Nodding, he swallows hard and wraps his arm around her shoulders, leans down to kiss the top of her soft hair. “I’m stopping,” he promises.

\- - -

Things with Mark are awkward.

It’s not like Eduardo purposefully sets out to make their relationship as uncomfortable as possible but he can’t control the stiltedness of their conversations. Mark certainly doesn’t help in trying to alleviate the tension because he just keeps on being absorbed by Thefacebook, almost constantly altering code and checking out test accounts to make sure everything is running smoothly. He’s got Dustin doing much of the same stuff he’s doing too, so whenever Eduardo’s in their room, it’s even more difficult to talk about things.

He just wants to settle the score, ok? He can’t do that if Dustin is in the suite, yelling shit about hits and overloads whenever he thinks it’s necessary to fill the awkward silence that constantly falls between Eduardo and Mark.

But when Eduardo brings up Christy’s connection with Sean Parker, Mark stops everything he’s doing, turns to Eduardo, who’s sitting cross-legged on the floor and highlighting his notes, and says, “You have to make a meeting happen.”

Eduardo just blinks at him. “Excuse me?”

“Do you have any idea what meeting Sean Parker could do for Thefacebook, Wardo? Do you even know who Sean Parker is?”

He scoffs, rolling his eyes, and goes back to his notes. “Yes, I know who he is. I’m not exactly fond of the idea of associating him with Thefacebook.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter if you’re fond of it,” Mark snaps, and he tosses something – a pen, Eduardo realizes as he lifts his hand to pull it out of his hair – at him. “You’re going to have to compromise. If he contacted Christy, we need to meet him.”

Eduardo clenches his jaw. Of course Mark would want to meet a man who started his legacy at the same age as Mark’s beginning his own. But Eduardo doesn’t want Sean Parker imparting any kind of wisdom when he’s very publicly floundered. Thefacebook doesn’t need that kind of reputation.

Mark insists on it some more, though, and this is the first time since Thefacebook launched that he’s seen Mark get so fired up. When he wants something, he goes after it, full force, knocking everything down in his path if it means reaching his goal. Eduardo vaguely, remorsefully, wishes he were one of the things Mark would fight for.

Nostalgia, eventually, is what gets Eduardo to give in, twisted as it is. He shouldn’t be nostalgic for something he never had. It’s just – well, the opportunity to make Mark happy trumps everything every single time.

So, over spring break, Mark, Christy and Eduardo go to New York to meet Sean Parker, the infamous Napster founder. He’s almost thirty minutes late and Mark’s still impressed by him. So impressed, in fact, that when Sean pauses meaningfully for them to mull over what he’s saying, Mark doesn’t say a single thing.

It wouldn’t even be so bad if Sean was making any sense but that’s just the thing. Everything that comes out of his mouth is bullshit and he doesn’t offer them a single piece of advice on how to make Thefacebook more successful, other than relocating to Palo Alto, which is way out of reach. He talks circles around them, wraps both Mark and Christy up in his stupid paranoid philosophy and then pays for their meal. Oh, sure, he predicts that Thefacebook could be worth up to a billion dollars but nothing else he says is of value.

That is, until he backtracks when he’s on his way out, to tell Mark – because apparently Sean thinks Thefacebook is all about Mark and not at all about his team of co-founders – that it would be cleaner if he drops Thefacecbook’s “the.”

Hundreds of dollars spent just to get out to New York to meet this idiot and all he tells them to do is drop the “the.”

It’s not enough to say that Eduardo’s angry.

\- - -

There’s nothing from the Sean Parker Variety Hour, as Eduardo so affectionately comes to call it, that Mark doesn’t take to heart.

First, he changes Thefacebook to Facebook as soon as they get back to Cambridge without talking to anybody about it.

Then he starts looking at houses in Palo Alto, which is something Eduardo doesn’t find out about until the afternoon that Facebook crosses the 150,000 member mark. Mark’s slip is intentional, of course. He very casually mentions that he’s interviewing two interns to go out with him to California in the middle of a conversation about needing more money and Eduardo couldn’t be more outraged.

It’s one thing for Mark to make a decision about semantics on his own (and, ultimately, changing Thefacebook to Facebook is the best thing that has happened for the site since it launched) but he can’t just one day wake up and decide _I’m going to Palo Alto today and I’m taking everything with me_. That’s not how business works. Business relies on structure. Eduardo likes structure; that’s why he wants to be in business. If he didn’t like structure, he’d be studying history or working as a substitute teacher.

Mark can’t just walk up to a very carefully made business plan and uproot it.

Except he insists that he can. Amidst squawks from the caged chicken Eduardo’s carrying around as part of his Phoenix initiation and the steady number-calling from Dustin, Mark makes it very clear to Eduardo that his opinion doesn’t matter. He trusts Sean, not Eduardo, and he wants to give Facebook a shot out west. There’s nothing that’s going to change his mind.

And of course, Eduardo shows up the following night at the CS lab with 18,000 dollars and the willingness to be a team player, as long he’s able to keep Mark as a friend and not ever have to hear something like _Get on board with this man, you know – or I don’t know what else to say_ ever again. Because that sounded too much like an ultimatum and Eduardo never wants to lose Mark. Being with Christy doesn’t change the way he feels.

That’s what Eduardo chalks it up to a few weeks later when it’s just him and Mark left after finals. Chris and Dustin are both gone and Mark’s suite is so empty. All that’s left are the Harvard-issued couch and coffee table and Mark’s things. The posters and pictures that hung up all year have been taken down, the walls stripped bare, and everything feels eerie. Eduardo remembers being here at the beginning of the year when everyone but Mark was helping tape things in weird places with loud music playing in the background and he misses it. He misses that, what they all had before Facebook took over.

He especially misses what he and Mark had – but he catches himself before he starts to feel too nostalgic. It’s not the time for that.

He could be in his own room, where everything is already packed and he doesn’t have to worry about the junk Mark’s sticking into boxes of his own, but he wouldn’t be a very good friend if he didn’t at least give Mark a hand.

Between the two of them, they manage to take twelve boxes to a storage facility that’s just off campus, right across the street, in three hours. When they get back, they splurge on both pizza and Chinese and break out the last of the vodka and beer.

A few after-dinner shots later, Eduardo’s nursing a beer, lying on the dirty floor, when he asks, “What do you think?” right up to the dark ceiling. Mark’s desk lamp isn’t potent enough to reach all the corners of the room.

From somewhere, Mark’s disembodied voice says, “About what,” with absolutely no inflection. Drinking does that to him sometimes. He gets all monotone. Eduardo’s spent enough time around drunken Mark to know.

“What do you think about –” Eduardo props himself onto one elbow to take a quick swig of his beer then plops back onto the floor. “About – about me and, like, you know.”

“Wardo, I don’t know.”

“About – you _know_ , Mark!” He sits up fully this time, pointing around the room with his index finger until he finds Mark sitting on his bed. “You _know_ what I mean, Mark, you always know.”

Mark snorts into his beer, which is not the same as Eduardo’s because it’s in a green bottle and Eduardo’s is brown. “Jesus, you’re drunk.”

“Jesus isn’t drunk, Mark,” Eduardo says, widening his eyes. “Jesus can’t _get_ drunk.”

“Yeah, ok, Wardo, whatever you say.”

He pouts exaggeratedly at Mark. “Will you listen to me?”

“I’m waiting.” Mark looks too amused for someone who’s talking like Charlie Brown’s teacher.

“So, ok, what do you think about me and, um, and – meandyou?” Blushing, Eduardo tucks his chin against his chest and brings his beer back to his lips.

It’s silent for a long time. Eduardo feels stupid for even bringing this up now, when they’re both just hours away from parting ways for a whole summer. That question is something he should’ve asked months ago, before Christy came into the picture, before Mark was too sucked into Facebook to pay him any attention, before they stopped being best friends and their friendship turned into a shell of what it used to be. It’s not something he has any right to ask now, when they’re both drunk and mildly vulnerable.

But, _God_ , he wants to know this answer so badly it’s making his chest hurt.

His eyes fall closed as he focuses extra hard on pulling the last bit of beer out of his bottle without having to tip back his head, so it surprises him when two warm hands land on his shoulders and try to pull him up. He drops his bottle and jerks and it’s a miracle he doesn’t scream, even though he knows there’s no one else in this room but Mark that could be touching him.

It scares him. It’s been way too long since Mark’s touched him so purposefully.

Eduardo takes a deep, shaky breath and pushes himself to his feet, not even sliding on the little puddle of beer that spilled from his overturned bottle. Mark’s looking at him, _straight_ at him, and pulling his bottom lip through his teeth like he does when he’s nervous.

Something balloons in Eduardo’s chest as he watches him.

“You didn’t answer my question,” he says firmly, tilting up his chin in what he thinks he wants to be defiance. He’s not really all that sure if he wants Mark to think that he’s being demanding or that he’s being bold. Either of them works but only one of them will get him what he wants. He’s just not sure which, so he tries his best to be both.

Mark just keeps staring from ten feet away and, in this state, Eduardo can see this scene in his mind looking like something out of an old western film, tumbleweeds, quick draws and all. Only not so much quick draws as tumbleweeds, because no one’s doing any moving here.

Sick of waiting, he presses on, “Mark? Are you going to answer?” and crosses his arms across his chest. His balance is thrown momentarily.

And then he’s completely off balance as Mark takes five long strides across the room and pulls Eduardo by the upper arms right into a kiss. Their teeth click together painfully as Eduardo hastens to uncross his arms and wrap them around Mark instead. He groans, not even caring that it hurts, just enjoying that the hurt is there because he hasn’t felt something like it in so long.

They kiss so hard that, after a minute, Eduardo can taste blood in his mouth. He doesn’t, however, make any effort to slow this down. Mark’s already rucking up the back of Eduardo’s shirt, his burning hands all over Eduardo’s back, and Eduardo’s busy too, willing his usually deft but now useless fingers into undoing the fly of Mark’s jeans. The first time they break apart, it’s to finish removing their shirts without getting anyone’s head stuck in the collar. Then they’re right back at it, kissing and sucking on tongues, walking backwards and pushing down waistbands until they gracelessly topple onto Mark’s bed with their pants around their knees.

Thankfully, they’ve had enough practice doing this drunk and Mark’s really good at flipping Eduardo onto his back without hurting him. All Eduardo’s good for, though, is lying there, watching Mark wrestle with Eduardo’s jeans until they’re on the floor, arching off the mattress every once in a while when Mark’s nails scrape against his skin. It’s hard not to wriggle around when all of Mark’s attention is on him. His gaze is so intense, like it’s trying to burn a pattern into Eduardo’s skin, and Eduardo wants it all over his body, just about as greedy for Mark’s mouth as he is for his eyes. All he ever wants, anyway, is Mark’s narrow focus all for himself.

Now that he’s got it, he doesn’t plan to let it go, no matter how much he’s had to drink. He can school himself into being completely present for this – he’s not _that_ hammered. It helps, too, that they banged teeth earlier because the pain definitely sobered him up, no matter how delicious it was.

Before he knows it, Mark makes quick work of all the clothing they’re still wearing and then straddles Eduardo’s thighs, leaning over to kiss him and pull stuff out of the nightstand at the same time. (That Mark still even has those things in his drawer after packing all his stuff is something to think about later.)

Eduardo catches Mark’s bottom lip in his teeth and runs his tongue over it as Mark climbs up a little higher, their hard dicks able to touch each other now. He has to pull back his head and groan, all the nerves extra-sensitive. He hears Mark’s grunt too, hears how it turns into a whimper when Eduardo twitches his hips up and their dicks rub even more.

He’s way too hard now and he’s had too much to drink and he’s not going to last long if this is how they’re going to do things.

“Mark,” he starts, panting and clutching at Mark’s hair with one hand and his shoulder with the other. “Mark, I’m not – I can’t be – this is so –” He makes a really whiney noise, then forges ahead on a big breath, “You need to fuck me because I’m not going to last long enough.”

Mark nods against Eduardo’s palm and Eduardo feels it all over, until Mark climbs off him and starts fumbling with the condom and lube.

Gasping, Eduardo props himself onto his elbows to watch Mark’s nimble fingers roll on the latex and then slick on the lube. He can already feel him, a ghost memory, deep inside him, searing hot, and he wants it now so badly. “Mark,” he involuntarily whispers, the syllable breaking into two at a really high pitch. “Please.”

Mark’s face goes so red and then he says, “Want this just as bad, Wardo,” and hikes Eduardo’s legs onto his shoulders, no warning necessary.

Eduardo isn’t sure if he’s referring to sex or answering Eduardo’s earlier question or both. He’s kind of hoping it’s both.


	3. clinging to the remnants of perfection

Eduardo doesn’t regret what happened with Mark. The next morning, he’d made sure Mark knew that he didn’t want that to be it for them. He’d said, “It’s just that with Christy in the picture, it’s hard,” and Mark had understood. When they said their goodbyes to each other, they’d hugged and Mark had whispered that he really wished Eduardo could come out to Palo Alto, that it’d be so much better than sucking up to ad execs in New York and working for Lehman Brothers. Much as Eduardo would’ve enjoyed being out there, it wasn’t something he was willing to do.

Although their last exchange was quick, Eduardo left on his train to New York feeling so much better about where he stood with Mark and where they stood together. He didn’t think the summer would be too hard to bear.

A month later, though, things aren’t going as planned. He quit his Lehman Brothers internship to regale advertising executives with his ideas for Facebook full-time because he knew half-assing this job wouldn’t get them any money. But after all the hard work and all the headaches, he still hasn’t managed to convince anybody to take Facebook on. He’s running out of ideas fast.

He tries to ask for Mark’s opinion but whenever they talk, it’s hit or miss. He can say one thing and Mark will respond but he can say something else and all he’ll get is white noise or keyboard or shouts or slurping. It feels like Mark wants to undo everything they’ve just gotten back and Eduardo can’t deal with that.

So he stops calling every other day and starts checking in once a week, at a time when he’s almost positive Mark won’t be too busy to pay Eduardo some attention. It’s a better strategy but not nearly as satisfying as it could be.

At least Christy’s in New York too. He’s not totally miserable running around when knows he has someone to come home to. She’s not Mark but she’s good enough and he really does like her.

At some point, though, even his relationship with Christy takes a turn for the worst when, after one particularly long day out that just so happens to be on a Friday, she accuses him of cheating. She throws stuff across the room, pegs him with a stiletto, slaps him in the cheek. She’s like a train wreck and all Eduardo can do is stand and watch, too stunned to defend himself.

Three days later, when he’s talking to a potential client, he coughs into his elbow and then has to excuse himself because his chest hurts too much from where Christy had dug her heel. It’s embarrassing and he was already off to a crappy day.

After a week of her jealousy, he books a flight to Palo Alto, calls Mark so that he’ll pick him up at the airport the next night at nine, and swears off ad execs and Christy for at least a week.

\- - -

Mark doesn’t pick him up. No one does. He has to call a cab and pay the driver sixty dollars because he charges an exorbitant airport surcharge for being the only cab running around there this late at night when it’s raining. He has to wait outside the front door for five minutes, suit getting ruined as the rain pounds down on him. He has to face Sean, who’s for some reason letting him in. It’s three in the morning in New York and he has to face Sean in his Palo Alto house, as if that makes any kind of sense at all. Sean shouldn’t be anywhere near Facebook, it’s what they’d agreed on.

So when Mark finally comes downstairs and they go into the hallway to talk, the first thing he asks him is why Sean is setting up meetings when it’s Eduardo’s job to get them money. Just the thought of Sean representing himself as part of Facebook is enough to make Eduardo’s blood boil. He’s said it time and again that they don’t need someone as notorious as Sean, that he’ll just screw with their public image, that whatever he suggests will be a really bad idea and Facebook will tank. It’s pessimistic, sure, but it’s the reality they have to face if they align themselves with Sean.

And now they have to face it, because Mark doesn’t give a shit about what Eduardo thinks is best for _their_ company. Because Mark is too absorbed in his hero worship of Sean to see that this is a bad idea.

What makes it even worse is that he threatens to leave Eduardo behind, which is ten times more terrible than his almost-ultimatum when he asked Eduardo for money to relocate to Palo Alto. That one, Eduardo could deal with because he wanted – and still wants, for that matter, and probably always will – to get on board with Mark and Dustin and there was no way he could convince either of them that Palo Alto was a bad idea. After a few weeks, he was even able to accept that Palo Alto was indeed the best place for any successful web site to be headquartered, especially if they wanted to get attention from any other Silicon Valley companies to keep Facebook moving forward.

This, though, this _having Sean Parker conduct business for Facebook_ thing is not something Eduardo is ready to handle.

Freezing Facebook’s bank account, then, is the best course of action Eduardo can think of in order to get Mark to understand that he refuses to accept Sean into Facebook. It’s the first thing he does when he gets back to New York the following morning. He’s angry and tired and he’s determined to get this out of the way and get his point across as soon as possible. That’s probably why the teller at the bank just gives him one glance and says, quickly looking down at a paper he handed her, “Certainly, Mr. Saverin.”

Mr. Saverin – he doesn’t usually get sick of being addressed that way, like he’s heard his father be addressed his entire life, but today, it doesn’t feel right. The thing he’s doing now, it’s just out of vengeance and it’s immature and it’s not what any “mister” would do. It’s unprofessional and unbecoming of a future businessman.

But he has to go through with it. He can’t just keep letting people – and people like Mark, he thinks bitterly – walk all over him. He’ll never get anything right if he doesn’t stand up for himself once in a while.

This is Eduardo Saverin standing up for himself.

\- - -

That evening, when he’s lying on top of his bed in his un-air-conditioned box of an apartment, Christy barges in, demanding an explanation for why he hadn’t told her he’d come back and why he hadn’t answered any of her messages. Eduardo’s freaked out, stammering half-assed excuses and trying to get her to calm down. He’s already spent a weekend with Christy’s crazy alter ego, he doesn’t want to spend even another second with it.

But when she’s like this, seeking some kind of retaliation, she’s impossible to win over. Her eyes are dark, shoulders rolled back, chin up – all the proper ways to stand when you want to intimidate someone. She’s doing a hell of a job of intimidating, that’s for sure.

It gets worse when his phone rings and she realizes that he really has been ignoring her all day, that his phone actually isn’t messed up. “It’s Mark,” she says, and her tone is a cross between disgusted and annoyed, like she can’t believe Mark’s calling at such an inopportune time for her, since she’s clearly about to rip out Eduardo’s throat or something equally violent. Like hit him over the head with the box he hands her when he takes the phone from her and goes into his bathroom to talk to Mark.

Once Mark starts talking, though, Eduardo realizes he’s really got his plate full while having Mark and Christy in his life at the same time. Mark’s busy yelling at Eduardo about the possible, thankfully avoided, consequences of Eduardo’s frozen bank account stunt (“College kids are online because their friends are online and if one domino goes, the other dominos go. Do you get that? I’m not going to back to Caribbean Night at AEPi!”) and Christy is –

Well, Christy’s setting Eduardo’s bed on fire and walking out and that’s _it_ , Eduardo has had _enough_ of this fucking – “What is _wrong_ with you?” he yells after her, tearing his free hand through his hair and rushing over to dump his phone on the side of the bed that isn’t in flames. “Hang on, hang on!” he shouts down at his phone, quickly pressing the speaker button and then dashing to the kitchen area.

Mark is still talking and the fire is still crackling to life while Eduardo rummages through all the cabinets and drawers, looking for the fire extinguisher. When he finally finds it, he pulls back the lever and sprays his bed, blocking Mark out for most of whatever he says. Eduardo does manage to hear “That was the act of a child” and “Maybe you were angry” and then, once he’s put out the fire, he’s able to grab his phone and say, “I’m sorry. I _was_ angry and maybe it was childish. But I _had_ to get your attention.” He hates the way his voice cracks on that last word.

“Wardo, I said I’ve got some good news.”

He exhales, “What is it?” and drops the extinguisher by his feet.

“Peter Thiel’s just made an angel investment of a half a million dollars.”

Suddenly, the fire and Christy’s craziness and Mark’s stupidity and Sean’s existence don’t matter. After all this work, Facebook finally has money. 500,000 dollars worth of money that they can use for servers and employees and equipment and –

Eduardo can’t even _breathe_ but he somehow manages, weakly, so disbelieving, “What?”

“A half a million dollars and he’s setting us up in an office. They want to re-incorporate the company, they want to meet you, they need your signature on some documents. So get your ass back on the next flight to San Francisco.” Mark pauses and when he says, “I need my CFO,” it’s even more fervent than anything that preceded it.

The smile that spreads across Eduardo’s face hurts, it’s so wide. “I’m on my way.”

“Wardo.”

“Yeah?”

“We did it.”

\- - -

By the time Eduardo’s waiting at the arrivals section at SFO the next morning, he realizes he’s probably spent more hours in the sky than on the ground these last two and a half days, flying back and forth between here and New York. The whole time, he’s been running from something – running from Christy and failed pitches to ad execs, running from Mark and Sean – but now he’s just here, hopefully for long enough to stop feeling like he doesn’t have a place in Mark’s life.

And he’s broken up with Christy too, so that’s another one hundred pounds off his back. It didn’t even hurt to break up, like all his other breakups did. This one was just _I’m breaking up with you_ and _You need to leave your keys and get out_ and he felt absolutely nothing watching Christy walk out of his apartment with tears in his eyes.

Well, ok, he felt remorse but it wasn’t specifically dealing with Christy. He felt remorse for wasting so much time and putting so much energy into a relationship he didn’t even really want.

At least he’s free now and Mark’s free and things are going to go right back to how it was between them, maybe even with more. _Hopefully with more_.

When Mark arrives, he gets out of the car to help Eduardo with his two suitcases – it’s not like he could’ve left all his valuable things in New York when he wasn’t going to be there for a few weeks – even though Eduardo doesn’t ask for it and even gives his arm a quick squeeze in greeting, a tiny smile too.

Eduardo’s still upset with Mark for not even warning him about Sean taking up space in his house for free but Mark’s being too kind right now for his annoyance to last long. Once they’re settled in the car, embarking on the thirty minute ride back to Palo Alto, Eduardo turns to Mark in his seat. He watches him for a little bit, taking in the new freckles that have appeared on his cheeks and the way his lips purse whenever someone passes him or cuts him off on the highway. He tracks his gaze down to his arms, all sinewy and taut as he grips the steering wheel tightly, like he’s afraid he’ll make a wrong move. It makes him laugh and Mark quickly looks over with a raised eyebrow. “What?”

Shrugging, Eduardo smiles and shifts in his seat. “You look like you haven’t driven in centuries or something.”

“Well, I haven’t driven in centuries, so, yes, you’re very observant, Eduardo.”

“I’ve always prided myself on that.”

That earns him Mark’s laughter.

After a few minutes, Eduardo finally figures he can go ahead and get it out there. It’s not like Mark’s not going to be happy to hear he broke up with Christy. “Mark?”

“Yeah?”

“I broke up with Christy.”

Mark’s grip changes on the steering wheel so that it’s tighter, the leather squeaking quietly under his palm. Eduardo gulps.

“Why’d you do that?”

“She was crazy, I told you. She set my bed on fire last night.”

“She – what, with what?”

Eduardo shrugs and turns to look out the window. He loves coming out west and cataloguing all the ways it’s different from and similar to the east. “I guess with her lighter, since she started smoking this summer.”

Mark nods and flips his turn signal on. The Palo Alto exit is less than a mile away.

“I guess I thought you should know. Because – well, I mean, you know why.”

“Well, yeah, I do,” says Mark and spares a glance at Eduardo again. Eduardo can’t see it because he’s staring very intently at his lap now, trying to will away the redness threatening to creep up his neck, but he can feel it.

“Um. Ok.” He nods and bites his lip. “Good.”

They don’t talk about anything else and when they get to the house, they don’t make an effort to make any extra conversation. Mark tells him he can sleep in his room and that there are clean towels in the closet and blankets under the pillow. Eduardo pulls his suitcase on top of the bed and unzips it, already starting to unfold his dress shirts and pants because even though he’s tired he can’t let them get any more wrinkled than they already are. Meanwhile, Mark clears some space for him in the dresser and the closet and then he’s out the door, laptop under his arm.

Eduardo puts all of his clothes away, changes into a t-shirt and gym shorts and slides into Mark’s bed, ready to zonk out for the next twelve or so hours, which will hopefully be enough to settle some of his sleep debt.

\- - -

He wakes up a few times during the day.

Once, Dustin decides it’s a good, fun idea to jump on the bed of a sleeping person and then he justifies himself by saying, “I haven’t had the chance to bug you for months, Wardo. _Months_!” He plops down on the mattress beside Eduardo and turns huge eyes on him. “Do you have any idea what that’s doing to my heart’s health?”

Then around seven, he wakes up because the doorbell is being pressed repeatedly and he can’t block it out with his pillow. He ends up having to go downstairs and open the door himself because everyone in the living room is too busy working and Sean isn’t around to field these things for them like he figures has been his job. It’s a pizza deliverer who’s got a pile of boxes on his feet and two more in his hands. Eduardo can smell the pepperoni.

Thankfully, Sean has already paid for the pizza; all Eduardo has to do is sign Sean’s name on the receipt and add a tip. After some quick calculations – six one-topping pizzas at fifty dollars times fifteen percent is seven fifty – he writes twenty dollars in the tip section and gives the pizza boy a huge smile.

He ends up staying downstairs for thirty minutes, sorting out plates and napkins for all the guys and then sitting next to Mark while he eats his own couple of slices. Mark actually talks to him about what he’s doing while he’s down there, licking grease off his fingertips.

When Eduardo gets back to bed, he can’t fall asleep this time, so he takes a long, hot shower and, after, lies in bed reading a random, overpriced novel he picked up at JFK until he can fall asleep again.

This time no one wakes him up until three in the morning – and it’s Mark, failing epically at quietly closing his drawers.

Eduardo groans and sits up, leans over to flick on the lamp on the nightstand. Mark looks relieved to be able to see. His shirt is on inside out.

“Sorry,” he says, pulling off his shirt so he can put it on the right way.

Eduardo looks down so he won’t be caught staring and finds his book under one of the pillows. He sets it on the nightstand. “It’s ok.”

Mark kicks his drawer shut, not caring to be careful now that Eduardo’s awake. “Finally done for the day.”

Eduardo yawns and nods at him. The longer he stares, the more apparent it becomes that Mark isn’t sure whether to climb in bed or go sleep on the couch. “Mark, you know you can sleep here right? This _is_ your bed.”

“Yeah, no, it is, I know,” Mark says, scratching the back of his head and teetering back on his heels. “But you’re exhausted, you should get good sleep –”

Chuckling, “I’ve been sleeping all day, Mark,” Eduardo kicks off the sheet he’s using and pats the space next to him.

“I don’t want to disturb your rest or whatever.”

He laughs again, pats the mattress more firmly. “Mark, come on. We’ve slept together before – and that was in a much smaller bed, so.” Mark still looks unsure. “Get over here, man.”

Muttering, “Right, ok,” Mark walks to the side of the bed Eduardo’s not occupying and lies down. There’s like a foot between them and Mark has his arms pressed against his sides.

“Jesus, Mark,” Eduardo snorts, and then he pulls Mark into his own side, wrapping one arm around his shoulders. Mark stays stiff, obviously not comfortable touching Eduardo. Eduardo can’t be anything but baffled. “Mark, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he grunts, his breath ghosting over Eduardo’s chest.

“You can touch me, Mark. It’s ok.” He pauses. “I want you to.”

Mark looks at him like he doesn’t understand Eduardo’s language or something and Eduardo, beyond tempted at this point, kisses Mark gently on the lips. “It’s ok,” he says again when he pulls back. “I want you to.”

And once Eduardo’s turned off the light and settled back into his spot from before, Mark stretches his arm across Eduardo’s waist. His fingers curl around the jut of Eduardo’s hip and he lays his head on Eduardo’s chest.

Eduardo squeezes him tightly, whispers, “Good night, Mark,” and falls asleep to the feel of Mark’s warm breath moistening the cotton of Eduardo’s t-shirt.

\- - -

When Eduardo cracks open his eyes again, the sun’s cutting across Mark’s face, lighting him up like a candle in the dark, the rest of him merely a silhouette. He’s pretty sure it’s not a decent hour to be awake but he is anyway. It takes a few minutes for him to jar his mind into working order.

That’s when he notices just how close Mark is. At some point in the night, Mark must have thrown a leg over Eduardo’s thigh, pressed himself in close enough for his exhales to be Eduardo’s inhales. And now it’s obvious just how hard they both are because, even through layers of fabric, Eduardo can feel it all.

It’s been months since this has happened. He can’t just let this opportunity go, no matter the hour.

Slowly, he slides his hand between their bodies and slips it down the front of Mark’s sweatpants, deliberately palming skin on the way. He leans over, places his lips to each corner of Mark’s mouth alternately, just lightly kissing because he _has_ to take advantage of this.

Mark doesn’t wake up until Eduardo’s fingers have encircled his dick and started jerking, which is pretty remarkable for all the work Eduardo’s doing. He gasps but before he can even try to say Eduardo’s name, Eduardo closes his lips over Mark’s, tongue already forcing them to part.

It’s times like these he’s glad they’re both blessed with good dental hygiene, no morning breath to worry about.

When Eduardo pulls back and leans his forehead against Mark’s, Mark pulls a hand through Eduardo’s hair, holds onto his skull with crushing fingers, and finally groans. Eduardo loves seeing him this way, so uninhibited, unconcerned that anyone might hear if he makes any louder noises. Mark’s so vulnerable when he’s half asleep, so easy to unwind and so easy to convince. All it takes is the right actions and he’s mush in Eduardo’s hands. This is the only time Eduardo can have anything he wants without Mark’s ridiculous babble getting in the way.

He’s not exploiting Mark or anything. He’s just taking advantage of this rare opportunity to please Mark in complete serenity, no worry for coding or thin walls or classes to distract either of them. It’s just him and Mark, only enough space between them to breathe.

Mark whimpers, “Eduardo,” into Eduardo’s mouth, voice caught and pinched in his throat so it makes the sound of a whining dog, when Eduardo flicks his wrist and thumbs the slit of Mark’s cock at the same time. Pleased with himself, Eduardo takes Mark’s bottom lip between his teeth and licks at it in short, random strokes. Mark starts squeezing Eduardo’s head again, so Eduardo times his licks and jerks with that, tugging and tasting every time a little burst of pain blossoms in his skull.

There are these wonderful noises Mark makes when he doesn’t have full function of his mouth that remind Eduardo of their first time, when neither of them had a single clue how to get the other off without fucking it up. He remembers, as he screws his eyes shut and forces himself not to start rutting against the mattress, how Mark writhed when Eduardo danced his fingers down each of his ribs slowly, taking the time to memorize the bumps and curves. He remembers the sound Mark made when Eduardo scraped his teeth up the hollow of his waist to the tip of his hipbone, when he sucked a hickey right where the waistband of Mark’s shorts had left an angry, red groove in his skin. He remembers the incredibly quiet, low scream Mark let out when Eduardo finally pushed inside of him.

He remembers it all, as if it just happened, and it’s difficult to keep himself from coming just from that memory alone.

“Wardo. Wardo, please,” Mark mumbles, almost delirious, clutching Eduardo’s hair tighter and thrusting into Eduardo’s fist. “Please, please, just let me –”

Eduardo kisses him before he can finish the sentence. He kisses him and removes his hand and fends off the protests by pressing himself, boxers and all, right over Mark’s crotch. They rub against each other, Eduardo bracing himself with his forearms on each side of Mark’s head, Mark hooking one arm around Eduardo’s neck and wrapping the other around his back. There’s lots of fabric between them, the thick material of Mark’s sweats and the thin material of his own shorts, but Eduardo forces himself to feel through it.

“Wardo, come on,” Mark mutters again, barely discernable this time.

All Eduardo wants to do is say, “I’m trying, I’m trying,” but Mark crushes their mouths together and he forgets everything. He focuses on Mark’s lips and Mark’s dick and it’s enough to push him to the edge, coming only seconds after Mark.

It’s only mildly embarrassing that they both came in their pants.

Eduardo buries his face in Mark’s neck and breathes in his sweat, licks some of it onto his tongue. It’s nothing he hasn’t tasted before, just the customary mixture of perspiration and Ivory soap, but it’s been so long since he’s been allowed _this_ that he wants it, wants Mark – wants it all so bad.

His chest aches with the realization that he can finally have it.

\- - -

They go to the new Facebook offices that afternoon. People are milling about, carrying in desks and chairs and computers, setting up in weird arcs that look exactly like what Mark showed him he wanted on paper. Something open, something communal. He doesn’t want anyone to feel more or less deserving than anyone else because it would defeat the whole purpose of Facebook, which is to bring everyone to the same level so that it’s easy to communicate.

Eduardo thinks it’s brilliant. He can imagine all the chairs full of people like Mark and Dustin, coding and occasionally having fun. Like a group of rowdy fraternity brothers. Like a –

“It really is like we’re presidents of a Final Club, Mark,” Eduardo says in awe, smiling, just taking it all in.

Mark grins at him and nudges him in the side with his elbow. “I told you so.”

Later, after he’s signed and initialed dozens of pages in his new contract and caught a celebratory beer from Dustin, Eduardo finds Mark leaning against a wall, his eyes closed, his arms crossed protectively in front of his chest.

“Mark?” he whispers, not wanting to startle him. He takes a drink of his beer, still waiting for him to respond, then tries again, a little louder. “Mark?”

Mark cracks open one eye, then the other, and then he stands up straight and gives Eduardo this weird, tight-lipped smile. “Hey.”

“Hey. Are you ok?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”

Eduardo shrugs and drinks some more beer. “You just looked – well, it seemed like you were worried about something.”

Blinking, Mark takes a step closer to Eduardo and shakes his head. “It’s nothing.”

“Ok.” A frown tries to pull down the corners of Eduardo’s mouth but he doesn’t let it. He doesn’t want Mark to see it. “I signed the contract, man.”

“Yeah, that’s –” Mark clears his throat, darting his eyes away and stepping back. “That’s good, Wardo. Great.”

Scrunching his brow, Eduardo asks, “Are you sure everything’s ok?”

Mark huffs, “Yes, Wardo, Jesus,” and goes back to lean against the wall. “There’s nothing wrong. You can stop asking now.”

Eduardo sighs and tips his bottle against his lips, not believing a second of anything Mark says. He wishes Mark would stop acting like Eduardo doesn’t know him well enough to notice when he’s lying. There’s this awful, partially hidden look of distraught on Mark’s face that makes Eduardo think his grandma’s died or something and he just doesn’t want to tell him it happened. He wants to hug him and tell him everything’s going to be ok.

Then he thinks of something better. Smirking, he chugs down the rest of his beer, tosses the bottle into the nearest trash can and then approaches Mark again. Mark’s back to resting his eyes or whatever he was doing when Eduardo found him. “Mark.” He opens one eye. “Follow me in two minutes.” His brow furrows but Eduardo doesn’t bother explaining himself.

He walks away, cutting a path through all the set-up desks and movers while in Mark’s line of vision. When he reaches the bathroom door, he briefly looks over his shoulder to make sure Mark is watching then goes inside. The bathroom smells sterile, like it’s never been used. All the surfaces are gleaming, no fingerprints on the faucets or the door handles. Each stall is perfect black, cracked open at that universal angle custodians use after they clean bathrooms.

It hits Eduardo then that this office is _theirs_. They have an office with stalls in the men’s bathroom and sparkling tiles or plush carpet on the floor.

He gets so caught up looking at the bathroom and thinking about how far they’ve come in just five months that he jumps when the door opens and Mark comes in. “Jesus,” he mutters, clutching his chest through the material of his black waistcoat.

Mark just shrugs at him and shuffles further into the room, backtracking for a second to flip the lock.

Eduardo smirks. “What was that for?”

“What was what for?”

He nods toward the door. “You just locked the door.”

“Oh.” Mark looks sheepish when ducks his head and shrugs at Eduardo again.

“You think you’re about to get lucky, don’t you?” Laughing, Eduardo walks over to Mark and tips his chin up. His cheeks are that really light pink color that rises right before you start full on blushing. Eduardo can’t keep himself from kissing him.

Mark hums and pulls back momentarily to say, “I know I am.”

Eduardo’s lips stretch into a smile against Mark’s mouth.

\- - -

“Where’d Sean get this again?” Eduardo takes a slow drag off the makeshift cigarette, feeling like a pro already even though it’s the first time he’s ever smoked weed. His surroundings are getting a little fuzzy but that’s nothing he hasn’t dealt with before. He’s gotten good and smashed various times, after all.

Then again, he never thought the first time he got high would be while sitting on a diving board.

“One of his friends, I don’t know where.” Mark puts his own jay between his lips and inhales slowly.

Eduardo eyes his skeptically, turning it in his fingers every which way, trying his best not to touch the side that’s lit. “I’m not sure I trust it.”

When Mark asks, “Why not?” it sounds husky and nothing like him.

“He could’ve laced it with cocaine or something.”

Mark rolls his eyes dramatically. “He’s got allergies.”

Eduardo gawks at him, cigarette dangling precariously from his fingers. “That’s like saying I don’t drink coffee.”

One of Mark’s eyebrows shoots up really high on his forehead. “How is that relevant?”

“I’m Brazilian, of course I drink coffee,” Eduardo explains after a short pause, going back to his cigarette and taking another hit in spite of everything he’s saying. “He’s Sean Parker, of course he does drugs.”

“We’re not discussing this, Wardo.”

Eduardo sighs and looks over the pool, bare feet dangling just inches above the dark water. If it weren’t for the weed, the wind would make him cold because the shirt he’s wearing – an Exeter Fencing shirt of Mark’s – is so well-worn that it almost feels like he’s not wearing anything over his chest at all.

“Wardo?”

He looks over at Mark. “Hmm?”

“You would do anything I asked you to, wouldn’t you?”

“Not anything,” Eduardo says immediately, not even bothering to consider the consequences of his admission.

“But pretty much everything?”

He sighs, resigned. “Yeah.”

Something glints in Mark’s eyes, a little mischievous glint, and then Mark grins and Eduardo knows he’s fucked. “You should smoke mine and yours at the same time.”

“No,” Eduardo says immediately, drawing his eyebrows together, trying to appear stern.

“Why not?”

“Because if I smoke two I’ll fall off the diving board.”

Mark blinks at him a few silent moments then says, “Well, that’s a non-sequitur if there ever was one.”

“No, Mark,” he insists again, shaking his head vehemently, so vehemently, in fact, that his whole body moves with the action. If he weren’t trying to make a point, he’d laugh at the thought of shaking his head with his whole body.

“It won’t happen, though! You’re not going to fall off the diving board.”

Eduardo’s still shaking his head and he thinks he can feel his brain moving around in there. “Prove it.”

“Only you can do that.”

He stops and looks at Mark. His eyebrows are raised expectantly, his hand outstretched, his burning cigarette proffered. “ _Fine_ ,” he groans, pouting and holding out his free hand, palm up. “I can’t believe I can’t fucking say no to you.”

Mark snorts and drops it very carefully in Eduardo’s hand. “Yes, you can.”

Eduardo glares, sticks out his tongue, then puts both jays in his mouth at the same time. When he sucks in the smoke, he has to do it extra hard so that he’s sure he doesn’t miss a good pull or something.

Mark looks too amused when Eduardo blows out the smoke into the air above his head, neck tipped back as he exhales. His eyes water a bit watching the stars cloud up under the plume of smoke. He feels a little lightheaded and when he sits up straight again, feels himself lean off to the side. Mark’s quick to grab his elbow, fingers tight around it as he pulls Eduardo closer to him. Their thighs are pressed together now.

Once he’s settled, Eduardo says, “I was just kidding.”

Mark shrugs.

“But thanks for trying to save me.”

“No problem.”

Wistfully, Eduardo smiles and takes another drag, staring down at the illuminated water. He’s entranced by the way it ripples and gets lost in it for a few minutes. Then, noticing his lapse, he jerks his head up and asks the first thing that comes to mind. “How did you start calling me Wardo?”

Mark reddens. If he weren’t stoned, Eduardo would say Mark’s embarrassed. But he is and Mark’s blushing. “I was looking for you one day and I asked Dustin, ‘Where’s Eduardo?’ And he was he drunk, so he started laughing. He said, ‘Where’s Wardo? Like Where’s Waldo!’ and it just stuck.”

“You’re the only one who calls me that.”

“You mean besides everyone else?”

Eduardo laughs, shaking his head at himself. “Yeah.”

Silence falls between them for a while, the only sounds that of crickets and faraway music and Eduardo’s puffs. Mark eventually asks, “I’m the only one who counts?” in a whisper that Eduardo has to strain to hear.

But when he deciphers what Mark says, he smiles and says, voice loud, “Yep.”

“That’s touching, Wardo.”

“You sound really normal for being stoned,” he notes, looking pointedly at Mark.

“You’re smoking more than me.”

“What? No, I’m not.”

Mark grabs the second jay, which is still between Eduardo’s fingers, and holds it up as evidence.

“Oh.”

“Yep.”

They smoke in silence some more. The world starts to get a little blurrier for Eduardo and he leans into Mark, silently willing him to wrap his arm around his shoulders. Mark just puts a hand on Eduardo’s thigh and squeezes the fabric of his gym shorts.

“Do you think we’ll make it?” he asks, quiet again. For some reason, Mark likes being quiet when he’s stoned.

“Make what?”

“Make it. Like, through Facebook and the restructuring and everything.”

Eduardo nods emphatically. “Why wouldn’t we?”

“If something went wrong . . .”

“Are you telling me something’s going to go wrong?” He raises an eyebrow.

“No, I’m just being hypothetical.” Mark’s fingers start tapping on Eduardo’s leg. “If something goes wrong, would you still . . . you know.”

“Support you?” Eduardo offers.

“. . . Yeah.”

“Of course.”

“You promise.” It’s not a question.

Eduardo looks Mark in the eyes, difficult as it is, and nods. He puts his hand on Mark’s upper arm. “Promise. Do you want me to cross my heart?”

Mark smirks and shoves Eduardo in the shoulder. It’s a miracle they don’t fall in the pool.

“You could’ve killed me, Mark!” Eduardo whines, tugging on the sleeve of his shirt and kicking him in the shin. “Just this much of an inch –” He demonstrates with his other hand. “And you could’ve impaled me on the diving board or something.”

Mark snorts and gently pries Eduardo’s fingers off his shirt. “You’re too hard-headed for that, Wardo.”

“Oh, ha ha, very funny,” Eduardo grumbles, overly sarcastic. He huffs and puts his cigarette back in his mouth.

“Just because it’s trite doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

He kicks him again.

“Hey! That hurt.” Mark frowns and reaches down to rub his shin. “Quit.”

“Fine.” Eduardo stubs out his cigarette on the diving board and then does the same with Mark’s, because his fingers were too loose to stop him.

“Wardo!”

“I have a better idea?”

“Oh yeah? What’s that?”

Eduardo smirks and leans in, wrapping his left hand around Mark’s neck and using the thumb of his right hand to drag out Mark’s bottom lip. He feels Mark’s Adam’s apple bob when he swallows and it makes him feel good to be able to draw that kind of reaction from Mark. He naively thinks no one else has ever been able to do it with as little work as Eduardo.

Mark’s tongue darts out to lick Eduardo’s thumb into his mouth. That’s most definitely the hottest thing Eduardo has ever seen. Mark’s tongue swirling around one of his fingers – that’s just too much for him to handle.

But just as he’s about to pull it away and kiss Mark instead, the patio doors open and everyone comes running out, Dustin in the lead, one of the interns shouting, clear over everybody else’s groaning and shouting, “Moscovitz, you’re supposed to fucking warn us before you let one of those silent-but-deadlies rip!” He and Mark both jerk apart. Eduardo’s burning red, wiping his thumb off on his shirt like he has something to hide.

\- - -

The next week and a half passes pretty smoothly. Things are like they were in Harvard after Mark broke up with Erica, only there are a lot more people they have to be wary of and a lot more coding they have to schedule around. Or not schedule, because scheduling sex isn’t what guys their age are supposed to do, but they have to work around Mark’s coding, which he (and everyone else) is still doing at the house because they haven’t hired enough people to fill up the office yet.

And they don’t have to worry about school either. Eduardo spends his days lounging around the pool, playing video games with Dustin and the interns, going out for jogs along University Avenue. He goes into the Stanford campus once, just to see what it’s like. He’s not considering moving out here just because Mark’s not going back to Harvard but he just – he wants to know.

Somehow, he does a really good job of avoiding Sean as much as possible. He’s not in the house very often anyway. More often than not, he’s gone by noon and isn’t usually back (unless he’s off shacking up with another one of his youngster girls) until well after Eduardo’s in bed. The few times they do run into each other, they’re pretty civil. After the one argument they had the third night Eduardo was here, where Sean accused Eduardo of being a distraction and Eduardo accused Sean of being a bad influence (and lots of other nasty things, most of which he can’t remember because he’d had a few too many beers), it’s like they signed a truce or something and decided not to go at each other’s throats anymore. For the sake of the company.

It makes Mark happy, at least. Lately, he’s been quieter, like he’s deeply considering something, and Eduardo hates seeing him shut down sometimes when he’s around. He’s starting to think his presence is what’s causing Mark to close up.

So it’s a good thing his trip ends the day it does. He’s had to deal with quiet Mark for too many days now and he can’t take more of it. He really cares about Mark, probably too much, maybe a little obsessively, and this funk he’s been in hurts Eduardo, as if he’s the one experiencing it.

The morning of his flight, Mark comes back from the kitchen, drinking coffee out of a mug that Eduardo and Dustin got him when they went to Six Flags with all the interns the day Mark was interviewing potential employees. Eduardo’s just of the shower, halfway dressed in his slacks and undershirt. He looks up from his suitcase, which he’s still sticking things into, and smiles. “Hey.”

Mark nods. “Why do you have to leave so early if your flight isn’t even until one? It’s not even nine yet.”

Eduardo picks up a washed San Francisco Giants shirt and pats it down on top of the rest of the shirts in his suitcase. “You know about security at airports as well as I do, Mark. And SFO is international, so it’s only worse.”

“Yeah, sure, but you don’t have to be there five hours early. That’s too much wait time.”

“I wouldn’t be there five hours early, Mark. The airport’s not that close, you know.”

Mark sighs and Eduardo can hear the way the coffee ripples because of it. “You shouldn’t leave today anyway.”

Eduardo’s hands freeze and he looks over his shoulder. “What?”

“You shouldn’t leave.” Mark shrugs and sets his mug on top of the dresser. “There’s something that needs to be fixed in the contract you signed and since you’re here, I might as well get that done sooner rather than later.”

Rolling his eyes, Eduardo goes back to packing. “There isn’t a single thing that needs changing in the contract, Mark. I looked at it myself and the lawyers told me everything that was in it. Nothing sounded off.”

“Well, there’s something I –”

“You’re just trying to stall me, Mark. I have to go back – you know that.”

“I’m not just trying to stall you,” Mark grumbles and he kicks the foot of the dresser too. “It’s important.”

Huffing, Eduardo closes his suitcase, zips it up, puts it on the ground and then turns to Mark completely. “What’s going on Mark?”

And, just like dozens of times before, Mark chooses now to kiss him, as if Eduardo hadn’t just asked him a question. Not that Eduardo minds much, really, he just wants to know what Mark’s so worked up about. It’s not like him to want to redo things because he always believes he gets everything right the first time around. Whatever is worrying him must be really important after all.

But Eduardo can’t change his itinerary for one of Mark’s flights of fancy. He has to get back to New York so he can move out and then get back to his family for the first time since January. That’s always been the plan.

Mark is insistent in kissing Eduardo, wrapping his arms around Eduardo’s neck and keeping Eduardo’s lips close with a hand in his hair. Eduardo’s not one to deny these advances but he really thinks he should. There’s too much in Mark’s kiss for right now. It’s like he wants to make Eduardo late or miss his flight altogether.

“Mark,” he pants, pulling his lips away and leaning his forehead against Mark’s. He puts his hands on his shoulders and rubs. “Mark, we can’t do this right now. I can’t be late.”

Mark clears his throat but he’s still quiet when he says, “Just one more time, Wardo.” He even kisses the side of his mouth, which he rarely ever does. “Please.”

This is probably what it feels like to have your heart break into a million pieces, Eduardo figures when his chest gets so tight that it’s like it’s going to crush his lungs. As much as he loves vulnerable Mark, he always makes him sad.

“Mark,” he sighs and he shakes his head a little, “we can’t.”

No isn’t the answer Mark is going to accept, though. He says, “No, we have to, Wardo,” and he kisses Eduardo again. He trails his fingers down over Eduardo’s face, slips them along the curve of his cheek and to his jaw, strokes his thumb over the pulse point in Eduardo’s neck.

Eduardo squeezes his eyes shut, breath catching in his throat, and doesn’t tell Mark not to again. There’s just something wrong that he can’t shake but, shit, he’d be lying if he said he didn’t want sex right before he goes back east. It’d definitely put him in a better mood to sit on a plane for almost six hours.

So he gives in.

They undress each other slowly, mostly at Mark’s tempo, and Eduardo doesn’t rush it because he likes this opportunity he has now to really _touch_ Mark. He’s able to run his hands down his sides and nose the back of his neck, finger up his spine and kiss the tip of his shoulder. Their pace gives him the chance to really look at all of Mark as they drop clothing piece by piece in a specific order.

And when they get into bed, Mark’s able to do the same thing to Eduardo, crawling down his front and pressing his mouth right at the bottom of his ribcage, sucking a red spot over his hip and kissing lines down the insides of his thighs. Mark’s just being so gentle and quiet that Eduardo can’t comprehend it. His brain is failing him, reducing him to strands of thought that are two words long or less.

Then there’s the sex, which is on a wholly new level. When Mark slides inside of him, it’s slow and tormenting, and it’s quite clear to Eduardo then that that’s the way this is going to go. Gradually, then, Eduardo lets himself relax. He focuses only on feeling and not putting any unnecessary words to it. He tips his head back and digs his heels into Mark’s back and reacts to Mark’s body, thrusting when he’s pulling out and staying still when he’s pushing back in.

But the closer Mark gets to Eduardo, the less his body wants to cooperate. He shivers and groans and twists one hand in the sheets, makes a tight fist. His heart’s hammering in his chest and yet he still manages to groan, rather breathlessly, Mark’s name, an exaggerated emphasis on the last two letters.

Eduardo’s not sure how he doesn’t just black out right in the middle of this when his senses are all so heightened that it feels like they’re way over the top. Like if he takes another breath, he’ll experience some kind of overload and just short-circuit or something. Mark’s just too much for him, way too much, and he can’t deal with this much longer.

Eventually, Eduardo notices that Mark’s struggling to breathe too. With each thrust, he gets closer to Eduardo’s ear and ghosts his breath across it, ragged and wet. He tries to say, “Wardo,” but it’s overtaken by a low groan and then, his hips moving frantically, he presses two, three, five times against Eduardo’s prostate and Eduardo can’t stop himself from coming.

It’s hard and drawn-out and at the end of his orgasm, all he can see is black for a few moments. But Mark comes too and Eduardo can’t just let him ride it out on his own. He has to kiss him and rub his arms and help him come down.

Ten minutes later, Eduardo’s lying on his back, resting, willing his leg muscles to uncramp after being pulled for so long while Mark had him bent in half. Mark is on his side, tracing random shapes and lines into the skin of Eduardo’s arm. Eduardo’s so tempted to fall asleep, just so very soothed by Mark’s touch, but he still has a flight at one that he has to catch. So he just stays still, watching Mark through half-open eyelids and occasionally brushing his knuckles up Mark’s arm or down his cheek. He pays attention to the shapes Mark’s making and notices a pattern after a while. The shapes have turned into lines and Mark keeps repeating them, one by one, time and again.

He opens his eyes all the way at that, wondering if maybe he can see it for himself, but he can’t. And Mark’s not showing any signs of what he might be doing on his face but –

Well, as sappy as it sounds, it feels a whole lot like Mark’s tracing “ILY” on his skin.

“Mark?” he whispers, chewing on his bottom lip.

Mark looks up at him, motions stilling. “Yeah?”

Eduardo takes a deep breath and says, “I love you.” It doesn’t feel wrong at all. He hasn’t given love a single thought since he’s been here but he knows he means it. For a year, he’s been trying to sort out his feelings for Mark and he’s finally figured it.

He loves Mark. Of _course_ he does. It makes a lot of sense.

Mark actually blushes and Eduardo presses his hand to his cheek, stroking his fingers on his skin. “I love you, Mark,” he repeats, voice a whisper, and then he leans over to kiss him.

\- - -

“Are you tired?”

“No.” Eduardo yawns, tries stifling it with his pillow so it won’t reach Mark through the phone.

But of course it does because Mark chuckles. “It’s, like, midnight over there. You should go to bed.”

“I’m fine.”

“You said you had a long day.”

Languidly, Eduardo rolls onto his back and, with both his legs but just one of his arms, stretches. His hand knocks against the headboard and he hisses, shaking it off. “Yeah, lots of packing.”

“Are you done with it?”

“Almost. A few more boxes, probably.”

“You should go to sleep, Wardo.”

“What, you’re my mom?” He scrubs a hand over his eyes.

“It’d be quite awkward if that were true.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

“We can talk another time.”

“How long have we been talking?”

“Um . . . over an hour and a half.”

“Wow.” Eduardo snorts, unable to believe that. Before this, the longest conversation he’d had with Mark was probably twenty minutes long. “We had that much to say to each other?”

“Apparently.”

“Oh, I should rephrase that. I had that much to say.” He yawns again. “You just typed while I talked your ear off.”

“That’s not true. That’s not true – I listened.”

“Did you?”

“Yeah.”

“What’d I have for dinner then?”

Mark is silent for a good while before he says, “Food.”

“See, you weren’t listening.”

“But I was.”

“Why can’t you answer that question?”

Mark sighs. “You had sesame chicken for the first time and you liked it.”

Eduardo smiles into his hand. “Yeah.”

“I was surprised you hadn’t because I’ve seen you eat Chinese takeout so many times in the past two years.”

“You know me. I don’t like change.”

“It was weird. You like so many things and yet you hadn’t tried one of the main flavors of Chinese American food.”

“I don’t like that much . . .”

“You’re Brazilian.”

“So?”

“So you like a lot of things.”

“Like what?” Eduardo pauses to think about the kind of food he likes then starts listing them. “I like American, Chinese, Spanish, Brazilian, Italian . . . Ok, that’s not that much.”

“And Jewish.”

“Oh, yeah. If you can call it that. I do love your mom’s latkes.”

“I know.”

“You should get her to send you some for when I visit you again.”

“You’re in New York. Stop by to visit her before you leave. I’m sure she’d love to make you latkes.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Gulping, Eduardo rolls onto his side and hugs his extra pillow close. “Does she know about us? About you and me? About you . . . _and_ me?”

Immediately, Mark says, “Um, yes.”

“Oh. You told her?”

“She’s a psychiatrist. She figured it out.”

“Oh.” Well, Eduardo’s mom is a counselor and she still hasn’t figured it out. He’s pretty sure she doesn’t even know he likes guys. “So you didn’t tell her?”

“Wardo.”

“Sorry. I was just curious.”

“It’s ok.”

Eduardo sits up now. He can’t have this conversation lying down anymore, it’s making him feel crazy, in some odd way. “Does everyone know?”

“Who’s everyone?”

“Like –”

“Because people here know. Obviously.”

He hadn’t expected anything less. “Yeah, no, I know. The two weeks I spent with you guys helped with that.”

“Yeah. And a lot of other things too. And it’s almost been a year.”

Grinning, Eduardo fists a hand in the sheets as hard as he can so he doesn’t make some stupid, embarrassing noise. “You’re keeping up with that?”

“No! No, I just looked at the date – not that I’m aware of dates or anything, because that would be ridiculous – and I thought. Yeah. Ok.”

“It’s ok to remember.”

“You knew it too. Don’t even try to lie.”

Laughing, Eduardo hides his face in both hands, phone cradled between his ear and shoulder. “I won’t. I know it very well.”

“Ok.” Mark goes quiet for a while. The only sound that Eduardo recognizes is the unmistakable clatter of well-worn keyboard keys, the same thing that’s filled all the gaps tonight. He’s not even sure he remembers a single instance when the keyboard hadn’t played the background music for this conversation. Usually, he’d feel ignored. Tonight’s just different.

Eduardo shrugs. “I miss you.”

Mark actually stops typing. Eduardo counts ten seconds before another sound passes through the phone – and it’s the sound of Mark’s voice, not the click-clack of the keyboard. “You should’ve stayed,” Mark says quietly.

“I couldn’t.”

“You should’ve never gone to New York in the first place. You wouldn’t have to miss me now. You should’ve –” He stops and swallows loud enough for Eduardo to hear. “Wardo, I asked you to come out here. I asked you to stay but you left anyway.”

The slight desperation in Mark’s voice makes Eduardo’s heart ache. “Mark, I haven’t seen my parents since January. I had to come back so I could –”

“I know, but you could’ve – you should’ve stayed.”

“Mark, come on. I haven’t seen them in months. School starts in a few weeks. And I’ll be back out there in no time.”

But it’s like Mark doesn’t hear him. He forges ahead, talking fast, “If you hadn’t gone to New York, you could’ve gotten us the VCs we needed. We could’ve – I wouldn’t have needed Sean to set it up for us and – and, fuck – Wardo.” Mark pauses, voice strained on the last two syllables. “You needed to stay here so I could fix the papers –”

“You didn’t have anything to fix in the papers, Mark. You were just trying to postpone me leaving.”

“That’s not true. I would’ve fixed it and you would’ve signed it and then you would’ve been free to go.”

“Mark.”

“If you’d come out to Palo Alto from the beginning, you might still be here. You could’ve transferred to Stanford and you could’ve worked with me and it would all be all right. We’d be all right.”

Eduardo blinks, confused. “We are all right. And I don’t want to go to Stanford, Mark.”

“Why? Because that’s not where your dad wants you to go?”

“Hey. Fuck you, that’s not what this is about,” he hisses, quickly losing his patience. He hates that Mark would even suggest something like that.

“Then what is it about?”

“Harvard is Harvard, Mark!” He groans and scoots back until he’s sitting comfortably against the headboard. “It’s where I want to be. I can’t – I can’t just put my life on hold for you, ok? And it’s not like you’ll even realize I’m gone.”

“That’s not true.”

He groans, “You keep saying that same phrase.”

“Well, what do you want me to say? That it is true? That you don’t know what you’re talking about? Eduardo, we’re not arguing semantics, ok? We’re not.” Mark’s still not resumed typing.

“Fine. You’re right.” Sighing, he slumps down to his back again and pulls the covers over himself. “Mark, you have Facebook to worry about. You don’t need me there – you’d just ignore me anyway.”

“When you were here, I didn’t ignore you.”

“You have Dustin and the interns to hang out with.”

“Wardo, come on. Listen.”

He groans, “What are you trying to say?”

“I needed you when I came out to Palo Alto but you were too stubborn to take my lead. I – I needed you when Sean took your place and I still need you now, even though it’s all changed.”

“What’s changed?”

“Wardo, just believe me, ok? It’s different now and I still need you. What do you want from me?”

Eduardo’s silent and Mark still hasn’t started typing yet. This is the longest time all night that something wasn’t going on in the background. “That’s all I ever wanted but I can’t stay in California. I belong on the east coast. And as much as I want to say I belong with you, that’s just not true.”

But just like that, Mark’s turned back to his keyboard. “You can’t say I didn’t try.”

“That’s really sweet, Mark.”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t get like that.”

“Like what?” Mark asks, sounding annoyed.

“All monosyllabic and fuck-the-world-they-just-don’t-understand.”

“Yeah, well.”

“Mark.”

“What, Wardo?”

“Was that your twisted way of telling me you miss me?”

“It’s only been a day. That would be ridiculous.”

“So?” Smiling, Eduardo closes his eyes and snuggles into his pillow. “I miss you.”

“And do I have to reciprocate that?”

“No,” he says slowly, thinking it over. “But I know you do.”

“Do you think I don’t care?”

“No, I never sai –”

“You didn’t have to say it. I know people think I’m an asshole and I know I usually am, but I care, ok?”

“Mark, I’m sor –”

Mark stops again. “I can’t do anything about you going back to Harvard, then?”

“No. It’s not up for discussion.”

He sighs. “Ok.”

“I should go to bed, Mark. Long day, you know.”

“Yeah.”

“Sweet dreams, Mark.”

“Should I be saying that?”

Eduardo smirks. “Yeah, I guess you should.”

“Is that all you need to tell me, though?”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing else you want to add?”

“Um . . . no?”

“I have a question.” Mark trails off, probably absorbed by whatever he’s typing.

“Out with it, man.”

“Do you remember what you said this morning?”

Of course he remembers. He just can’t let Mark get away with it easily. “I said a lot of things this morning.”

“Yeah, I know, but it was important.”

“Isn’t everything I say important?” Eduardo laughs.

“Wardo.”

“Mark.”

Mark draws a deep, rattling breath. “You said that – that you _felt_ that you –”

“Stop beating around the bush.”

“You told me you loved me.”

Eduardo grins. “I did.”

“You knew I was talking about that.” It’s not a question.

“I did. I wanted to hear you say it.”

“Why’d you say it?”

“You mean why do I love you or why did I pick that moment?”

“Why’d you pick that moment to tell me you loved me?”

“This may sound crazy but it’s really not.”

“Wardo.” It’s probably the hundredth time tonight alone Mark has said his name on the phone like that, warningly, like Eduardo shouldn’t keep pushing buttons.

He sighs. “I thought you were tracing letters on my skin and it kind of felt like you were spelling that out so I said it before you could finish.”

“Oh.”

Eduardo’s silent for a few seconds. “So were you?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s kind of sappy, Mark.”

“Oh, fuck you, you’re the one who _felt_ it or whatever the fuck.”

Laughing, “Ok. Well, it’s true,” Eduardo scratches a hand through his hair and may or may not think of Mark running his own fingers through it. “Did you want me to say it again? Were you fishing for me to stroke your ego or something?”

“No. Not really. No.”

He laughs again. “I love you, Mark.”

“I know you do.”

“Good night.”

“Night, Wardo.”

Eduardo tucks his phone under his pillow and smiles into his blankets, then quickly falls asleep.

\- - -

Eduardo’s first semester of his senior year at Harvard is a lot less exciting than the previous one. At least last year he’d had the Investment Association election and the Phoenix punching to keep him busy. The only thing challenging him this semester is a particularly hard course load, which is pretty much a given so he’d always expected it, and keeping up with Mark.

The first couple of weeks after Eduardo left Palo Alto weren’t too bad to deal with. Mark always made himself available to Eduardo at the right times during the night and Eduardo always took Mark’s calls as long as he wasn’t in class or studying with one of his friends. They had built themselves a pretty good dynamic and Eduardo was starting to believe it would last.

But in October, things change. Mark gets busier and becomes less receptive to Eduardo’s calls. Instead of entertaining all of Eduardo’s spiels about everything that comes to mind, he starts cutting him off halfway, making up some project or other. When he moves into his own apartment, this time renting with the money he’s made and not Eduardo’s, he uses that as an excuse to not call Eduardo back, even though Eduardo spends two days trying to get through to him and even has to ask Dustin to make sure he’s alive.

There’s no specific reason for why Mark pulls away like he does. He just does it and he doesn’t apologize and it leaves Eduardo partially heartbroken and discouraged.

He gives their relationship a lot of thought while he’s getting ready for his final projects the week before the Thanksgiving break and he comes to the conclusion that distance has always tended to wear them down, no matter how much effort they put in for that not to happen. Maybe Mark’s just gotten sick of waiting around for Eduardo. Or maybe he misses him but, knowing he can’t do anything about it, he put some more space between them, like if they stopped talking as much then the time between now and the next time they see each other would be shorter.

It all feels logical to Eduardo, at least, and it helps him justify what Mark’s doing. All he wants is a reason anyway and if Mark won’t give it to him, the next best thing he can do is make one up himself.

And once he gets sick of feeling neglected, he books a flight to California for Thanksgiving. His parents couldn’t care less if he’s home then since they’re not American, so he might as well take those three days off from class to go to Palo Alto and sort this stuff out. He sends Mark an email with his itinerary, tells him he’ll take a cab to his apartment and then just waits for a reply to come in. He half expects Mark to tell him not to come out, that he’s too busy and won’t be able to spend time with him anyway, but what he gets instead is so much better. _I’ll be here_ is more than enough to make Eduardo feel like he still has a chance.

He gets to Palo Alto at three on Wednesday and Mark lets him into his apartment, which has just one room and a main living area that’s divided into a living room and eat-in kitchen by a transition from carpet to tile. There’s a second-hand couch in front of a TV stand and a fold-out table with chairs under the cheesy, faux chandelier in the kitchen. Boxes are stacked halfway to the ceiling along the wall and Eduardo feels kind of confused. Mark’s so adamant about staying in California and abandoning his Harvard degree yet he’s been here six months and he’s still not unpacked.

He doesn’t question anything, though, until Mark shows him his room and he sees an air mattress on the floor.

He gapes at Mark, dropping his suitcase unceremoniously on the ground. “Are you insane?”

Mark raises an eyebrow at him and shakes his head.

“You’ve been sleeping on an air mattress for a month and a half?”

“Yeah. It’s actually pretty comfortable. You should try it out.”

“Mark,” Eduardo chuckles, coming over to him and holding him by the shoulders. It’s the first time they’ve touched since Mark dropped him off at the airport in early August and Eduardo loses his train of thought there for a second. “Mark, you can’t sleep on the floor the rest of your life. It’s bad for your back and for you it’s probably even worse since you’re at a desk all day.”

Mark shakes his head, curls bouncing around with the movement, falling in his eyes. Eduardo doesn’t think he’s ever seen Mark’s hair this long; he likes it, though. “I wasn’t planning on it the rest of my life. I just haven’t gotten around to buying a bed. I’ve been busy.”

“Well, are you busy now?”

Slowly, Mark says, “Yes?” and it turns into a question, like he’s expecting Eduardo to know all the answers or something.

If that's the case then, he replies, “No, you’re not,” and goes around behind him, steering him out of the room with one hand between his shoulder blades. He doesn’t think he wants to let go of him. “We’re going to a mattress store right now. I refuse to sleep with you on an air mattress.”

“Wardo –”

“No buts, man.” Smiling, he pats Mark on the chest and nods him toward the kitchen. “Go get your keys.”

\- - -

Later that night, after the guys from Badcock are gone, he and Mark are lying on the bed, one thousand dollars worth of an awesome, queen-sized mattress under their backs, and Eduardo feels at ease again. He’d thought coming to Palo Alto would be awkward since they’ve been apart for so long and they’ve been so estranged on the phone, but it’s kind of like he’s been here all along. Mark actually makes an effort to talk about things and even though they haven’t done anything but maybe accidentally brush hands, Eduardo’s still glad they haven’t really changed.

“So how’s your last year going?” Mark asks just as Eduardo’s drifting off.

Eduardo rolls onto his side so that he and Mark are both facing each other, a couple of inches between them, and shrugs with one shoulder. “It’s all right. My classes aren’t as bad as I expected.”

Mark nods, rubbing a knuckle over his eye, and says, “Things aren't usually as bad you expect them to be.”

“Yeah.”

“They’re usually better or just worse.”

“Huh?” Eduardo yawns and covers his mouth with the back of his hand, lets his eyes fall shut for just a few seconds before he focuses on Mark again. He has a flashback to the day he signed the new contract, when he found Mark leaning against the wall, looking vaguely distraught. Mark kind of looks like that now, eyes scrunched up a bit, mouth downturned.

“Sometimes you overestimate how good something is going to be or underestimate how bad something to be,” he says eventually, words slow, like he’s trying to find the right way to say this. Like he’s unsure or something.

Eduardo’s still not sure what he’s supposed to do other than listen when Mark’s reflecting on things. “Ok,” he breathes out, pulling his pillow under his cheek, hand pressed on the mattress beneath it. He wants to reach across the space between them with his free hand and pull Mark into his chest but he’s not sure he can. “How do you figure?”

“You know how Sean and I are working on that thing with Case?” Eduardo nods, already resigned to the fact that Sean has pretty much taken his job in everything but title. “I’m not sure if I’m overestimating how good or underestimating how bad it’s going be.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine, Mark,” he promises, nodding emphatically to make his point.

Mark just shrugs and goes quiet for a few minutes, leaving Eduardo to his thoughts, giving him the chance to drift off again until he finally says, interrupting again (not that Eduardo should be complaining because this isn’t anything like Mark, him lying in bed at ten PM when he could be coding, and he should be relishing in this opportunity), “Do you remember what you said that night we got high?”

Eduardo laughs at the memory of smoking two jays at the same time and not realizing he was doing it. “Seeing as I’ve gotten high so few times,” he says, nudging Mark’s calf with his big toe. “What I said about what?”

“If we would make it through the restructuring and everything.”

“I said yes, right?” Eduardo asks, unable to remember that particular conversation. What he remembers about that night is smoking, sitting really close to Mark and helping everybody chase Dustin into the pool for something he’d done that had clearly been offensive. There’s also a very vague memory of him and Mark eating food in bed but that’s it. The details of that night are regrettably fuzzy.

Mark doesn’t answer him. He just stares at him for a while, hand pressed beneath his cheek as he mirrors Eduardo’s position. Again, all Eduardo wants to do is touch him – and he knows he can but he’s too afraid. Irrationally afraid, probably, because Mark has never made it seem like he didn’t want Eduardo to.

It’s just been too long and Eduardo’s always been afraid of rejection.

So he doesn’t do anything but lie there, drifting again. When Mark gets out of bed, Eduardo really badly wants to stop him; he’s just too tired to do anything about it.

\- - -

He wakes up around one in the morning alone and his legs feel naked under the blanket that’s been thrown over him. Sitting up, he sees that his pants are actually pretty neatly folded on top of the bed and if he’d been doubting Mark’s feelings for him earlier, he can’t possibly be doubting them now if he voluntarily made sure Eduardo was comfortable while he was asleep.

He smiles to himself and gets up, padding out to the living room in just his boxers and dress shirt. All the lights are still on and Mark’s sitting at the table in front of his laptop. His shoulders are slumped forward, hands in his lap, head bowed. The closer Eduardo gets to him, the more obvious it becomes that he’s fallen asleep while working.

Sighing, he comes up behind him and wraps his arms loosely around his shoulders, ignoring all his previous qualms about touching Mark this time. He’s too fond of Mark in this moment _not_ to touch him, so he bends down and kisses the back of his neck, noses against it and inhales deeply. He catches the faded scent of Mark’s soap and sweat and it’s very possible this is the best thing he’s smelled in months.

He turns his head a certain way and his eyes alight on the computer screen, which still hasn’t blackened or locked out. Mark’s browser is open to his Facebook messages and, sure, Eduardo isn’t usually one to creep but he sees Sean Parker’s bold name and he has to read it.

 **Sean:** _Is he brainwashing you?_ – 12:33 am  
 **Mark:** _That’s a ridiculous suggestion. If anyone brainwashes, it’s you. Look, I just don’t believe Eduardo de_

Clearly Mark had started to think about how to finish that sentence and fell asleep in the process. Eduardo considers all the different possible ways to finish the word – denies, deceives, deals, debilitates, devotes – but it doesn’t really matter, honestly, because he has no idea what this conversation is about in the first place. He’s not going to snoop either; he trusts Mark. He has no reason not to.

Shaking his head gently so that he won’t start thinking too hard about it, he wakes Mark up with a firmer kiss to his cheek and a squeeze of the shoulders. Mark grumbles, leaning back in his chair and rubbing his cheek against Eduardo’s arm.

“Mark,” Eduardo chuckles quietly, putting one of his hands on Mark’s head and gently tugging his bushy hair. “Come on. You should go sleep in a bed.”

When Mark says, “Don’t wanna,” it comes out jumbled, slurred by sleep.

It makes Eduardo laugh some more because sleepy Mark is as amusing and emotive as drunken Mark. He kind of hates that he has to wake him up. “The bed’s more comfortable than the chair. Come on.”

Mark groans when Eduardo jostles his shoulders some more but he doesn’t resist him this time. He nods and turns off his computer, not seeming paranoid at all that Eduardo may have read what was on the screen.

That’s all Eduardo has to see to know that he doesn’t have to worry about that conversation with Sean anymore. He’s pretty sure Mark’s got his back.

\- - -

Only it turns out, less than a month later, that Mark never had his back at all.

Eduardo’s ambushed at the millionth member party in December. The papers the lawyer from the contract signing hands him emasculate him, knock the wind right out of his lungs. He brings the paper closer, notices how bad he’s shaking when the neat, black words start jumping around. All his insides feel like they’ve been tied up and squeezed for good measure.

Even though his vision’s starting to black out in certain places, the intention in the document is pretty clear: _He’s not part of Facebook anymore_.

He leaves the glass room he’s in, not hearing any of the lawyer’s pleas to keep him back, and walks straight through the bullpen, tunnel vision focused only on Mark, who’s wearing what looks like the North Face jacket Eduardo accidentally left over Thanksgiving break and his huge, fuck-off-or-you’re-dead headphones. Eduardo can’t believe, how in all his anger, he can still recall things about Mark that he’s always found endearing.

Even once he’s finally gone through with breaking Mark’s computer – just like he’s wanted to do at various points in the past when the damn thing was messing everything up between them – and yelling at him and hearing his voice crack, he still, no matter how hard he tries, can’t shake this feeling that he’s just lost something he’ll never find a replacement for.

And, yes, he’s furious. And, yes, it’s possible he’ll never forgive Mark for this. And, yes, he’s already thinking about what lawyer he can contact when he gets back to Cambridge and is able to sort through all papers and formulate his case.

But he can’t just ignore everything that has happened in the last year and a half. He can’t sit in the cab back to the airport without remembering, more vividly than anything, the most recent night he was in Palo Alto, when Mark had watched Eduardo gathering the few things he’d brought with him from the door and said, without any preamble at all, “I love you.”

He keeps replaying that scene in his head, focusing on different things every time he goes through it, like the sad tone Mark had used and the way only one of his fists was clenched at his side and the angle at which his head was tilted. Something new shows up every time. When the cab finally gets to the airport, Eduardo has to wipe his face with his sleeve and shake feeling back into his hands because he hadn’t even realized he’d been clenching them so tight.

\- - -

It’s past three in the morning and Eduardo has finally managed to fall asleep. His phone rings, though, and it wakes him up, its obnoxious, tingly ringtone filling up the room.

His throat hurts, his eyes are sticky and he can’t even read the phone’s screen through the bleariness. Somehow he manages to press the send button and whisper, “Hello?”

All he hears is, “You were right about Sean, Wardo. He got – ” before he ends the call, tosses the phone onto the floor and hears it crack open. That’s the last thing he allows himself to think about – not Mark, not Dustin’s earlier text saying _I swear to god wardo I had nothing to do with this. I didn’t even know_ , not the vision of Sean flinching back when Eduardo went to punch him – before he goes back to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you were curious, what Mark was going to send Sean in response was, “Look I just don’t believe Eduardo deserves to be cut out of a company he helped found.” I'm not sure why he didn't ultimately send that. Maybe he wanted to word it differently. The point this section is trying to make is that Mark regrets getting Eduardo to sign those contracts and he wants to reverse it. Sean just won't let him.
> 
> So, wow, ok, if you made it through this fic, you totally deserve kudos. Thank you so much for reading!


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